The tape ended.
“You were enough, Camille.”
For a while, I sat in the blue light with Atlas’s empty side of the bed beside me and his reading glasses still on the nightstand.
Then I called Morgan.
She answered on the first ring.
“You watched it,” she said.
“How long, Morgan?”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. That hurt almost as much as the answer.
I called Morgan.
“Two years,” Morgan said.
I gripped the phone. “Two years? Are you kidding me?”
“Camille…”
“How could you keep this from me?”
She went quiet.
“You sat beside me last Mother’s Day,” I said. “You brought muffins. You watched me pack away the yellow curtains and pretend they were just ugly. All this time, you knew my husband was healing his heart with a little girl?”
“Are you kidding me?”
Morgan’s breath shook. “I knew he was reading at Willow House. I knew about the checkers games and the books. I didn’t know he’d promised Matilda anything until near the end.”
“But you knew there was a Matilda.”
“Yes.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“That’s it?”
“You should have told me.”
“No,” she whispered. “That’s just the only part I can say without turning it into an excuse.”
I pressed my fingers to my eyes. “Did you bring her today?”
“She begged to say goodbye.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Yes, Camille,” Morgan said. “I brought her.”
My laugh came out sharp.
“Atlas left me a note,” she said quickly. “He said if he ran out of time, I had to make sure you got the tape. I told Matilda the funeral might be too much.”
Read more on the next page…
