Chapter 5: What Gloria Was Afraid Of
I didn't sleep.
Noah did — three hours straight, which should have felt like a gift.
I lay beside the bassinet and watched the ceiling and thought about three months versus eight months and what else could be measured in units of time that Owen had quietly adjusted.
At six in the morning, I heard movement downstairs.
Gloria.
I fed Noah, settled him back down, and went to find her.
She was at the kitchen counter with a cup of tea, still in yesterday's clothes.
She hadn't slept either.
"You stayed," I said.
"I wasn't going to leave you alone with the baby."
I sat down across from her.
"Tell me what you were going to say last night.
Before Owen stopped you."
She wrapped both hands around her mug.
"Gloria."
"He should be the one to tell you."
"He told me about the baby they lost.
He told me it was three months, not eight.
What else is there?"
She looked at her tea.
"Is Diane still in love with him?"
"That's not—"
"Is she?"
"Diane is a complicated person who has been through a great deal of pain."
"That's not an answer."
"She never stopped caring for him.
No." Gloria looked up.
"But that's not the part Owen needs to tell you."
My hands were flat on the table.
"Then what is?"
"After you and Owen got engaged," Gloria said carefully, "Diane reached out to him.
She was struggling.
She said she needed closure.
Owen agreed to meet her."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"He met her."
"Once.
He told me about it afterward.
He said it was just coffee.
That it was a mistake and it wouldn't happen again."
"When was this?"
"Four months before your wedding."
I counted backward.
Four months before our wedding.
We had been deep in planning.
I had been choosing flowers and arguing with caterers and thinking we were building something solid.
"Did anything happen at that meeting?"
"He said no."
"But you don't believe him."
Gloria's hands tightened around the mug.
"I believe he meant for nothing to happen."
"That is not the same thing."
"No," she said quietly.
"It isn't."
I stood up.
My legs felt strange, like the floor had developed a slight tilt.
"Why did you invite her yesterday, Gloria?
The real reason."
She was quiet for a long moment.
"Because she called me two weeks ago.
She said she needed to see that Owen had moved on.
That seeing the baby — seeing that he had a real family — would help her let go." Gloria looked at me directly for the first time.
"I thought I was helping everyone."
"You thought you were helping Diane."
"I thought I was helping all of you."
"By bringing her into my home.
While I was asleep.
With my newborn son."
"I know how it looks."
"Do you?" I picked up my phone from the counter.
"I want you to call Owen and tell him to come back.
And I want you to be here when I ask him what actually happened at that meeting."
Gloria's face shifted.
"Valerie—"
"Because here is what I know, Gloria.
You are afraid of something specific.
Not just that I'm angry.
Not just that Owen lied about the timeline.
You are afraid of one particular thing coming out.
And until I know what that thing is, I cannot make a single decision about my life."
She picked up her phone without another word and called her son.
He answered immediately.
Like he'd been waiting.
"Come back," she said.
"She knows about the meeting."
A long pause on his end.
Then: "I'll be there in ten minutes."
Gloria set the phone down and looked at me.
"Whatever he tells you," she said, "I want you to know that I love Noah.
And I love you.
And I have handled this very, very badly."
It was the most honest thing she had said since I'd walked into that nursery.
It didn't fix anything.
May you like
But I noted it.
Owen's key turned in the lock nine minutes later.
