“Yes?”
“I didn’t know you existed,” I stuttered. “Until about a year ago.”
“That’s why you called my mother?” she asked.
I paused. “I thought she should know.”
“That Ted was cheating on my mother with yours?”
I cringed. “Yes.”
“How did you find out?” Daphne asked.
“He came home after a few months’ absence. I found this box under my bed. There were pictures of you inside it.”
“What?”
“Um… He had pictures of you…”
“Really?” Daphne sounded shocked.
“Yes.”
“What did you do next?”
“I went to my mother and asked her about the pictures,” I said. “That’s when she told me that Ted had another family, which was why she had never been able to marry him.”
“Your mother admitted to the affair.”
I felt instantly ashamed. “Yes.”
“She sounds exactly like I’d imagined she’d be,” Daphne said bitingly.
And despite everything, I found myself defending my mother. “She’s always had issues. She’s just lonely and sad and confused a lot of the time.”
“So because she’s lonely, I should excuse the fact that she intentionally stole another woman’s husband?”
“No, of course not—”
“Why did you want to meet me, Kristen?” she demanded.
“Because…we’re sisters,” I said lamely.
I thought I saw the coldness in Daphne’s eyes fade for a moment. She turned away from me and looked towards the fountain. “I used to wish I had a sister,” she said. I allowed myself to smile, wondering if this was the turning point. But then she looked back at me, and the coldness had returned. “I was a fool to have wished for that. After I found out about you, all I wanted was to be an only child again.”
She had walked away from me, and I thought I’d never see her again. But then two weeks later she called. She apologized for being so rude and asked if we could meet again. The second meeting went much better than the first. By the end of it, we had approached the fragile boundaries of friendship, and I could see her walls begin to lower slightly.
The third time we met, I was shocked to find myself face-to-face with Daphne’s mother…again. The first time I’d met her had been at the threshold of her own front door. She had stood there in shock while I unleashed the horrible truth—then I’d walked away, leaving her to her crumbling reality.
I wasn’t quite sure why she had wanted to meet me again, but I realized quickly that Isabelle was a different kind of woman. It was an awkward lunch, but she was gracious, kind, and friendly. She didn’t ask me one question about my mother. But at the end of the lunch, she did ask about Ted.
“Have you seen him lately?”
“It’s been almost ten months since I last saw him,” I admitted. “I think sometimes he calls to speak to Mom, but she’s never confirmed it. He’s still angry with me because I told you about…everything.”
“That was the main reason I wanted to come today,” Isabelle told me. “I wanted to thank you. Your call is what gave me the courage to finally divorce Ted.”
After that, Daphne and I continued to see one another occasionally. It was a strange relationship, and I knew it only worked because we never discussed my mother.