“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.
“I told him not to tell you,” she sobbed. “It was me. It was me, Claire. When he was nineteen and the doctor told us, I was the one who said, never tell a woman. Never. Do you hear me? I made him promise.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why would you do that?”
She lifted her face. Her mascara was running down her cheeks in black streaks.
“Because his father left,” she said. “When Ben got sick. Richard left. He couldn’t handle it. The hospital, the chemo, the bills. He packed a suitcase while Ben was in the hospital having his second round, and he left a note on the kitchen counter, and I never saw him again.” She was gasping between the words. “And I thought, that’s what people do. When something is broken, they leave. I thought if any woman found out Ben couldn’t give her children, she’d leave him too. Just like Richard left me. I thought I was protecting him. I thought I was protecting my son.”
