The person stepping into the light was my mother, Danielle’s grandmother, a woman I had not spoken to in over fifteen years. She was older now, her hair silver, leaning on a cane, but her eyes were the same, and they were filled with tears. My legs nearly gave out. “How?” I whispered again, turning to Spencer. His hard expression had softened into something almost apologetic. “The ‘deal,’” he said quietly, “was that I’d get you out here without you refusing. Danielle asked me to. She’s been planning this for months.”

Down the hallway, I heard my daughter’s footsteps returning, and then she was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching the two of us in the yard, watching my mother, her hand pressed nervously to her chest. She hadn’t gone to the restroom at all. She’d slipped out to bring her grandmother in from the car. Spencer’s cold performance at the table had been a piece of theater, the only way, Danielle believed, to keep me from bolting the second the past came up. “Mom,” Danielle called out, her voice trembling. “Please don’t be angry. There’s something you never told me, and Grandma finally told me the truth. I needed you both here to hear it together.”