Holidays.
Road trips.
Bad haircuts.
Hospital waiting rooms.
Every memory containing Susan now came with a second question.
What else was happening then?
That was the real devastation.
Not only discovering who she was.
Losing confidence in who I had been.
“I don’t know what parts of us were real,” I said.
Susan’s face crumpled.
“Most of them.”
“Most?”
Poor word.
She knew it immediately.
“I mean—”
“I know what you mean.”
I stood.
Susan did too.
“No.”
She stopped.
“I need you to leave.”
Her eyes closed.
Emily looked between us.
“You too?” she asked.
I looked at her.
That question surprised me.
“No.”
Susan opened her eyes.
I continued.
“Emily stays if she wants.”
Emily looked stunned.
Susan nodded slowly.
Then she picked up her suitcase.
At the door, she turned.
I thought she would make a speech.
She did not.
“Thirty-seven years doesn’t give me the right to ask for thirty-eight.”
