“Ethan’s been seeing her nearly every week. He said she needed support. And that she was scared.
For as long as I’ve been married, Gail has lived a town away but hasn’t wanted to reach out… I don’t understand —” My voice cracked before I finished the sentence. “Are you sure he wasn’t talking about someone else?” the old woman asked, touching my arm gently. “Like an aunt or someone?”
“No,” I whispered, my stomach doing somersaults.
“Ethan said that it was his mother. He said she was here.”
And just like that, something shifted inside me, a tight, cold knot that began to form at the base of my spine and slowly curled its way upward. I muttered a quick goodbye and walked back to the house, but my hands were trembling so badly I nearly dropped the groceries.
Something was not right, and the deeper I thought about it, the more certain I became that something was terribly wrong. That night, over dinner, I studied Ethan carefully. He looked tired, yes, but not in the way of someone who had spent hours in a hospital chair, watching IV lines drip into his mother’s veins.
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