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“I am hopeful. But I didn’t call to talk about them.”
“Oh?” Liza glanced at the time. She had about half an hour before Finn arrived. “Is everything all right?”
There was a pause. “Liza, I need you to do something for me.”
Her mother never asked anything of her.
Liza sat down hard on one of the kitchen chairs. “Of course.”
“It’s—difficult.”
Physically or emotionally? “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”
“Dear Liza. Always so sensible and reliable.”
Liza studied her sky-high heels. Fortunately this wasn’t a video call, or her mother would see that she’d left sensible and reliable behind in London. “What’s troubling you?”
“There are letters—”
Liza sat up straighter. “The ones in your study?”
“You know about them?”
“I found them when I was searching for the DVDs. They weren’t where you thought they were, so I checked the desk. The letters were with a ring. Which I assume is a fake diamond?”
There was a pause. “It’s not fake.”
Liza went hot and cold.
Should she mention that it was a valuable object to keep in the house? No. The ring clearly had an emotional significance that she didn’t understand. It was her mother’s business. She swallowed down her words of warning. “How can I help?” It took so long for her mother to respond that Liza glanced at her phone screen, wondering if they’d been cut off. “Hello?”
“Yes. I’m here. Before I met your father, I was engaged. His name was Adam.”
Liza stared across the kitchen.
Her mother had been engaged. To someone who wasn’t her father. Her mother had been in love.
“The man in the photo. With you and Ruth.”
“You have a good memory.”
“He broke off the engagement?” She couldn’t quite believe her mother was telling her this. Talking to her this way. She was afraid she might give the wrong response and cause her mother to retreat again.
“No, I broke it off. When I discovered that he’d had an affair with Ruth.”
Ruth. Her mother’s best friend.
“Oh no, that’s awful—” She’d had no idea. Her mother was so private, Liza hadn’t ever given much thought to what lay in her past. “Did Dad know?”
Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. She knew how hard her mother found it to talk about anything personal. “Forget it. You don’t have to talk about—”
“Your father knew. It was the reason he proposed three times. He understood how difficult I found it to make that commitment. I was never good at being close to people after that.” Her usually poised mother was h
esitant and uncertain. “I preferred my relationships to be light and easy.”
“I’m not surprised.” Nor was she surprised that her mother had broken her connection with Ruth. What did surprise her was that her ultraprivate mother was finally telling her this.
“I found it hard to trust. I didn’t want to risk my heart again. I protected it carefully, you see. It was my good fortune to meet your father, and he was everything I needed. He is the only person who ever truly knew me.”
