Chapter 3: Angela Comes to the Door
The next afternoon, I was still at the kitchen table when the doorbell rang.
My mother’s map lay beneath the parcel photographs. I’d tried to put them away twice. Both times, I’d ended up pulling them back out, as if staring long enough might make the dark soil explain itself.
Through the window beside the door, I saw Angela holding a thick book against her chest.
The wedding album.
For one foolish second, my body remembered the old things before my mind could stop it: Angela laughing in a satin bridesmaid dress, her arm looped through mine, both of us squinting into the sun outside the church.
Then the doorbell rang again.
I opened the door but didn’t step aside.
“Hi, Rebecca.”
“What are you doing here?”
Her fingers tightened around the album. “I thought we should talk.”
“You could have called.”
“I know.”
She looked tired. Not just from a bad night. There were shadows beneath her eyes, and her hair had been hastily pulled back. I recognized the small gold earrings she wore whenever she wanted to feel put together.
The knowledge that I recognized them made me angry all over again.
“Why the album?” I asked.
“I thought—” She stopped, glancing down at its worn blue cover. “I thought maybe we could remember who we were before all this.”
“All what?”
Her mouth trembled. “Rebecca.”
I stepped back, not to welcome her, but to let her enter. I didn’t want the neighbors watching from their windows. Angela came inside with the album pressed against her chest, as if it could shield her.
She set it on the kitchen table. Her gaze caught on the map and photographs.
“You went to the parcel,” she said.
I pulled out a chair but didn’t offer her one. “You know about the parcel?”
“I know it’s part of the trust.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Angela looked at the photographs again, then sat down. She placed both hands in her lap.
“I know more than I should.”
“Did you go to Arizona with David?”
Her eyes lifted to mine. The hesitation was brief, but I saw it. I’d seen that same pause on the phone when I asked whether she’d met anyone interesting.
“Yes.”
“Was the retreat real?”
“No.”
“Was the affair real?”
She flinched as if I’d struck the table between us.
“Yes.”
The word was small. It didn’t make the room smaller. It didn’t make what she’d done less real.
“How long?”
“I don’t know what answer you want.”
“The truth.”
“I can’t give you an exact date.” Her voice cracked. “It started months ago.”
I gripped the back of the chair. “Months.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You stood beside me at my wedding.”
“I know.”
“You held my hand when my mother died.”
“I know.”
“You sat with me through every appointment, every failed treatment. You watched me come home and try to smile when I couldn’t—”
“Please.”
“No. You don’t get to ask me to make this easier for you.”
She lowered her eyes. One tear fell onto the back of her hand.
I felt no satisfaction. Only the ache of something precious being used against me, even now—not by her words, but by the memories she’d brought into my house.
I pointed to the album. “Did you bring that because you thought I’d look at those pictures and remember you as my friend?”
“I thought you might remember that I was.”
“I remember.”
Her lips parted. She had no answer.
I sat across from her, leaving the table between us. “What were you and David doing with Graham Pike?”
Her expression changed. It wasn’t surprise. It was fear arriving late, after she’d hoped it might never be invited in.
“We met with him more than once,” she said.
“Daniel told me that much. I’m asking why.”
“I don’t know everything.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s true.” She leaned forward, both hands now braced against the table. “The meetings weren’t just— It wasn’t only an affair. Graham wanted information about the trust.”
“What information?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why were you there?”
“David said it was routine. That the trust needed attention and you hadn’t dealt with the old paperwork.”
“My mother’s paperwork?”
“Some of it.”
The kitchen seemed to sharpen around me: the ticking clock, the faint rattle of the refrigerator, the glossy corners of the photographs. I stared at Angela.
“What did you do?”
She looked toward the wedding album, then away.
“Angela.”
“I scanned some papers.”
“From where?”
“Your mother’s house.”
My fingers tightened around the chair until the wood pressed into my palm. “You were in my mother’s house?”
“After she died, you gave me the key. You were sorting everything, and you were barely sleeping. I helped you—”
“You helped me pack boxes.”
“Yes.”
“I trusted you with her things.”
“I know.”
“And you scanned documents without telling me?”
“I thought it was harmless.”
“You thought?”
“David said it was routine. He said there were old trust records that might need updating and that he didn’t want to burden you unless something actually needed your attention.”
“And you believed him.”
She nodded once, ashamed.
“What exactly did you scan?”
“I can’t remember every page.”
“You can’t remember?”
“It was a while ago. There were papers, maps, some forms. I just used my phone. David said he needed them to check whether everything was current.”
“Did you send them to him?”
Angela closed her eyes.
There it was: the silence I’d been waiting for, and dreading.
“When did he ask you?” I said.
“Before Arizona.”
“How long before?”
“I don’t know. A few weeks.”
“And Graham Pike was already involved?”
“I didn’t know who he was at first.”
“But you went to meetings with him.”
“Yes.”
“You slept with my husband, helped him get into my mother’s papers, and sat across from a company executive while they discussed my family’s trust.”
“I didn’t understand what they were planning.”
“What did you think they were planning?”
“I thought it was paperwork.”
“People don’t fly across the country and book a couples massage for paperwork.”
Her face crumpled. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, trying to hold herself together.
I felt the old instinct rise in me—the one that had always made me reach for her when she cried. I let it pass without moving.
“You don’t get to use our history to make me comfort you,” I said.
“I’m not asking you to.”
“You brought the album.”
“I brought it because I was scared you’d never let me in the door again.”
“You don’t know what I’ll do.”
“No.” She wiped her cheek. “I don’t.”
The answer was the first honest thing she’d said that didn’t ask anything of me.
I looked at the album’s blue cover. Years of photographs inside it: our younger faces, our arms around each other, our certainty that love meant you could hand someone a key and never wonder what they might take.
“Did you give David those papers?” I asked.
Angela’s gaze dropped to the table.
“Rebecca, I—”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
May you like
The single word settled between us.
She drew a breath that shook. “I gave David access to your mother’s papers.”
