“I know.”
“You put my clothes in trash bags, Ben!”
“I know!” He was sobbing now. “I know. I know I did. I’ll never forgive myself for that. Never.”
Diane made a small noise. I turned to her.
“And you,” I said. “You knew. You knew the whole time.”
She lifted her chin, but her lip was trembling.
“Yes,” she said.
“You brought me soup. You sat at my kitchen table and held my hand and told me it wasn’t my fault, and you knew exactly whose fault it was. You knew, and you said nothing.”“Claire—”
“And then you stood in that hospital room, and you looked at my daughter, your own granddaughter, the baby you named after your mother, and you said she was a disappointment.”
Diane broke.
I’d never seen her cry before. Not like this. She folded over on the ottoman with her face in her hands, and she wailed. That’s the only word for it. A long, terrible sound, like something being torn.
