My Mother Recognized My Fake Fiance From an Autumn Night Five Years Ago
She turned and walked back toward the living room, her posture straight and rigid, leaving me alone in the dim hallway with the heavy wool quilt in my arms.
I stood in the hallway for a long moment, my hands gripping the rough wool of the quilt.
My mother’s words sat in my chest like a cold stone. I walked back into the living room, setting the heavy blue and gray bundle on the arm of the sofa.
My father was no longer in his leather chair.
“Your father went to the library to find his reading glasses,” Christopher said, looking up from the low table.
He was holding the small silver creamer from my mother’s coffee service, turning it slowly under the yellow light of the lamp.
“Is everything alright?” he asked.
“She wants you to leave,” I said, sitting down beside him on the sofa. “She said you have to be out of the house before morning.”
Christopher did not look surprised. He continued to turn the silver creamer in his hands, his thumb tracing the smooth curve of the handle.
“She is afraid,” he said.
