“You could have asked me.”
“You would have said no.”
“You don’t know what I would have said,” I said. “You never asked me anything. Not once. In thirteen years.”
The front door banged open again.
Karen. Still in her gym clothes. Her car keys in her hand, her face blotchy like she’d cried the whole drive over.
“Mom called me,” she said, breathless. She saw the yellow paper on the table. She saw Greg’s face. She saw mine.
She stopped in the hall.
“Oh,” she said.
“Witness,” I said. “Karen Mercer Doyle.”
Karen put her hand over her mouth.
“Lauren, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”
“Did you read it?”
“Yes.”
“Before you signed it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think about me at all?”
Karen started to cry for real.
“Phil said Mom could never live with us,” she said. “Never. He said he’d leave first. And Mom kept asking me, Karen, where will I go when I’m old, where will I go. And Greg had the bigger house. And I thought—” She wiped her face. “I thought if Greg promised, I’d never have to say no to her. I’m a coward. I know I’m a coward.”
