The words hit harder than if he’d shouted. Not here. As if the problem was my timing and not his mistress in my father’s front pew wearing my birthday gift.
“Family supports family during hard times,” Becca said, loud enough for the nearest rows to hear.
I turned to her slowly. “Family?”
She smiled again, but this time I caught the nerves underneath. “I’m practically family now.”
The sentence landed like a dropped tray. Heads turned. Somewhere to my left, someone actually gasped. Grant’s shoulders tensed. Good. Let him feel something.
“Practically family?” I repeated.
Becca lifted her chin. “Grant and I have been together for almost a year. It seemed appropriate that I be here.”
A year.
The number moved through me like ice water. A year gave shape to everything. Our anniversary weekend in Paris, when Grant had “missed” the first flight and arrived smelling like airport whiskey and a different hotel soap. The sudden flood of conferences. The nights he came home too tired to talk but smelling faintly of a floral perfume I didn’t own. Cabo, supposedly for clients. My father’s second round of chemo, which Grant had skipped because of “board pressure.”
A year.
“Natalie.”