“You’re making this sound ugly.”
“It sounded ugly when you said it.”
Lucas rubbed both palms down his trousers. Martha could see him gathering words, losing them, gathering them again. She had watched him do that as a boy when he had broken something.
But he was thirty-five now. The thing breaking was her trust.
“Did you know?” she asked.
He swallowed.
“I knew they were coming.”
“To visit?”
He looked at Sarah.
Martha waited.
“To stay,” he admitted.
“And my bedroom?”
His silence answered before he did.
“Sarah said the stairs would be hard on Bill.”
Martha glanced at the hallway leading to the guest room. It was on the same floor as her bedroom.
“The guest room has boxes in it,” Lucas added weakly.
“So moving your boxes was too much trouble. Moving your mother was easier.”
He closed his eyes.
Sarah stepped between them.
“We thought you’d understand once everything was settled.”
“No,” Martha said. “You thought I wouldn’t make a scene once the suitcases were inside.”
For a moment, Sarah’s expression hardened into something unmistakable.
Then Bill spoke.
“You said she invited us.”
Linda turned toward her daughter.
“You told us Martha wanted us here. You said she was excited about having company.”
Sarah’s mouth opened.
“I knew she’d say yes.”
“That isn’t what you told us,” Bill said.
Martha felt the anger in her chest settle into a colder, steadier place. Linda had not walked into the house believing she was taking it. She had walked into an invitation that did not exist.
Sarah looked toward Lucas.
“Tell them what we discussed.”
He stared at her.
“Which part?”
The question changed the air.
Sarah lowered her voice.
“Don’t do this.”
Martha drew the envelope closer.
“What else?”
Lucas took his phone from his pocket. His thumb hovered above the screen, and Martha realized with a sick little twist that the answer was already written somewhere.
