Sometimes, she would sit beside me in the kitchen and call me her second mother.
Now, when I think about those afternoons, I wonder how many times she smiled at me while hiding the truth.
But I didn’t discover everything at once.
The truth arrived on an ordinary Tuesday evening, just one day before our fortieth wedding anniversary celebration.
And by the time Daniel realized what I knew, I had already made a decision that would change the rest of our lives.
Daniel and I married when we were eighteen.
We were practically children, with little money, no important connections, and no real understanding of what marriage would demand from us.
Our first apartment had peeling wallpaper, a temperamental heater, and a kitchen so small that two people could barely stand in it together.
We bought secondhand furniture and celebrated our first Christmas with a tiny tree that leaned dangerously to one side.
