Apples Never Fall

There was a pause. Amy fidgeted. “Just that they’d been kind of snappy.”

“So no hand-holding then,” said Christina dryly, and she saw Amy flinch again, as if she’d hurt her feelings.

“Not so much re

cently,” admitted Amy, and she avoided eye contact.

“Well, obviously we’ll keep trying to get in touch with this Dr. Edgeworth. We’re also trying to track down the woman who stayed with your parents last year,” said Christina. “She seems to be a woman of mystery.”

“Savannah,” said Amy heavily. “I had a number for her, but it’s disconnected.”

“I’m trying to understand what went on with her.”

“What do you mean?” said Amy evasively.

“Your brother said she caused some dramas in the family.”

“Did he?” said Amy. “Is that all he said?” She looked at Christina warily.

“Is there more to say?”

“No. I don’t know.” She curled a long strand of blue-dyed hair around her finger as she considered her next words. “I don’t think it’s relevant, though. To you. I mean to … this.”

It was relevant all right. Christina could taste the relevance, as sweet as sugar.

She waited. Ethan quietly cleared his throat.

“Do you remember when you first met her?” asked Christina.

“It was Father’s Day last year,” said Amy. “I made brownies.” She paused. “So did she.”

Chapter 22

FATHER’S DAY

Brooke Delaney parked outside her parents’ place and sat with her hands on the steering wheel, willing herself to move, to open the car door, to get out, go inside, and be introduced to this girl, this Savannah, to whom she would try to be kind and welcoming. She didn’t want to make conversation with a stranger on Father’s Day, especially this particular Father’s Day, her first family event since the separation.

She considered putting on lipstick, just to please her mother. Brooke didn’t like to wear any makeup. She’d always found the whole concept peculiar. Why paint your face like a clown?

She found the lipstick that had been rolling about in the console of her car ever since her mother had pressed it upon her at least two years ago. She put it on, smacked her lips together, and looked at herself. Yep. Clown.

She felt hollowed out, scooped out, empty, and not only that, there was a sharp, digging-like sensation at the center of her chest, like inflammation of the costal cartilage, as if she’d been doing too many plyo push-ups, except she hadn’t been doing plyo push-ups, she’d been looking at social media.

That’s where she’d seen a photo of her husband, sitting next to a woman she didn’t recognize.

There was nothing to say there was anything significant about this woman—and so what if there was, it’s a separation, Brooke.

Right now the word separation felt as violent and irreversible as an amputation.

Just something about the tilt of her husband’s head. The angle of it.

The woman had a heap of long hair tumbling about her shoulders, and she wore a lot of makeup. Like, a lot. Grant always said he didn’t want a “high-maintenance” girl. He wanted a girl who camped, who hiked, and who didn’t need to blow-dry her hair each morning. Brooke “ticked a lot of boxes,” he said, on their second date.

Three months after she and Grant started dating, they climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Grant’s previous girlfriend could never have done that climb, because she wasn’t “outdoorsy” and she had a bad knee. The pain went away when she took the weight off her leg. Cartilage issues, presumably. Brooke didn’t know why she was still diagnosing her husband’s ex-girlfriend’s knee. Maybe it was because Lana’s knee had been so present in the early days of their relationship. Brooke had liked hearing about how much more athletic and easygoing and better in bed she was than Lana. She was a Delaney, she liked winning. Was it possible that this competitive rush had propelled the momentum of her entire ten-year relationship? But how had Grant managed to establish himself as the prize?

Would the next woman in Grant’s life hear about Brooke’s inconvenient migraines, in the same way that Brooke had heard all about Lana’s inconvenient knee?

Grant’s responses to Brooke’s migraines had been exemplary. He helped her into bed in a darkened room. He brought her medication and homemade soup. She couldn’t be offended when he joked to friends, his arm lovingly about her shoulder, “She’s just a little defective.” That wasn’t nasty. It was witty. It was funny! It was her cue to say how supportive Grant was when she had a migraine. She’d never missed her cue.