Chapter 5: What Sophie Didn't Know She Knew
Sophie called me the next morning.
I almost didn't answer.
I didn't know yet what Ethan had told her, or how much, or whether she was calling because she was worried about him or worried about me or worried about something else entirely.
But she was going to be my daughter-in-law, and I had promised myself I would not make this harder for her than it already was.
"Linda." Her voice was careful.
Warm, but careful.
"I'm so sorry about last night.
My mother was awful and I should have said something at the table and I didn't, and I've been awake half the night feeling terrible about it."
"Sophie, you don't need to apologize for your mother."
"I do, actually.
She had no right to speak to you that way.
None." A pause.
"Ethan told me some of what you talked about in the car."
"How much?"
"The name.
The connection." Another pause, longer this time.
"Linda, I genuinely did not know.
I swear to you.
I knew my mother's maiden name was Whitmore.
I knew she had a brother who she didn't speak to.
But I never connected it.
I never even thought to."
I set my mug down.
"Your mother has a brother."
"Had.
Or has — I don't actually know if he's still alive.
She never talks about him.
When I was little and asked about him, she said they had a falling-out years ago and that was the end of it.
I stopped asking." Sophie's voice dropped.
"Is it him?
Is it Ethan's father?"
"We think so.
We're not certain yet."
"Oh God." The sound she made was small and genuinely distressed.
"Does that mean — Ethan and I are—"
"No," I said quickly.
"No.
If Daniel is Rebecca's brother, that makes you and Ethan cousins by marriage at the most distant possible connection.
Nothing closer.
You are not related."
The breath she let out was shaky with relief.
"But it means," I said carefully, "that your mother may have known who Ethan was before you ever brought him home."
The line was quiet for a long moment.
"She asked me a lot of questions," Sophie said slowly.
"When I first told her about Ethan.
His last name.
Where he grew up.
What his mother did." Her voice changed.
"I thought she was just being thorough.
She's always thorough about everything.
I told her everything she asked."
"Did she seem surprised by anything you told her?"
"No." Sophie said it flatly.
Then: "That's the thing.
She didn't seem surprised at all.
I remember thinking she was being unusually calm about me dating someone who wasn't from our — from the kind of family she usually approves of.
I thought maybe she was finally letting go of that."
"She wasn't letting go of anything," I said.
"She was gathering information."
"Yes."
Another silence.
Then Sophie said something that I had not expected.
"Linda, my mother has been trying to get Ethan and me to sign a prenuptial agreement.
She's been pushing it for two months.
My father thinks it's unnecessary.
Ethan and I haven't decided yet." A beat.
"I don't know if that's connected.
But I thought you should know."
I thanked her.
We said goodbye.
I sat with the phone in my hand for a long time after.
A prenuptial agreement.
Rebecca pushing for it.
Gerald thinking it unnecessary.
May you like
I didn't know yet what Rebecca wanted.
But I was becoming very sure that she wanted something — and that last night's dinner had not been about meeting me at all.
