“When?”
He couldn’t answer.
I started toward the hotel.
Robert followed.
“Irene.”
I stopped.
“You haven’t called me that all night.”
“What?”
“My name.”
He looked confused.
“You keep saying you were afraid, you were shocked, you didn’t know how. Everything is about how hard this was for you.”
“Irene…”
“You found out you had a son. You found out he’d died before you ever met him. You found a granddaughter. I understand that this was devastating.”
“It was.”
“But you had a wife.”
He lowered his head.
“You had someone who had spent 40 years standing beside you. And you decided this part of your life was none of my business.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It was exactly like that.”
The next morning, someone knocked on our hotel door.
Robert was in the shower.
I opened it.
A young woman with dark hair and brown eyes stood in the hallway.
She looked nervous. “Hi.”
I knew immediately.
“Ariella?”
“Yes.”
She glanced behind me.
“Is Robert here?”
Robert came out of the bathroom.
When he saw her, he smiled. “Ariella.”
She smiled uncertainly. “I came.”
Then she looked at me.
“I’m sorry. He called me last night and asked me to come this morning and meet you.”
