My 18-year-old daughter ran away right after my second wedding — a month later she stood shaking on the porch, stared at my new husband, and told me to make him admit the truth.

Wade came down with a bag. Not a big one — the dark green duffel he took to teacher conferences. He'd packed it fast. I could tell by the way the zipper bunched at the corner.

He set it by the door.

"Nora." He looked at me. "I know there's nothing I can say tonight that helps. But I need you to hear that I love you. That part was never a lie."

"I believe you," I said. "It doesn't change one thing."

He nodded. He took his coat off the hook.

"Can I call you tomorrow?"

"Not tomorrow."

He stood in the open doorway a second. Erin was sitting on the bottom stair, not looking at him.

"Erin." He said her name carefully. "I'm sorry for what I put you through. That was wrong. I knew it was wrong while I was doing it."

She didn't answer him.

He left. I listened to his car back down the driveway and pull away. I stood in the hall listening until the sound was gone.

Then I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, because I needed my hands to be doing something.

Erin came in and sat at the table.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"No." I got two mugs down. "Are you?"

"No."

"Are you hungry? When did you last eat something?"

She had to think about it. "Yesterday? I think yesterday."

I turned around. "Yesterday."

She shrugged, and it wasn't a casual shrug. It was the shrug of somebody who'd been too wound up for weeks to remember basic things like meals.

I opened the fridge and started pulling things out. Eggs. Cheese. The end of a loaf on the counter. My hands knew what to do while the rest of me was somewhere down the hall.

"Where have you been this whole month?" I asked.

"With Tessa." Her roommate from freshman year. "She didn't ask me a lot of questions. She just let me sleep on her couch."

"I owe her a thank-you."

"Mom, you don't have to—"

"I want to." I cracked an egg into the pan. "She looked after you when I couldn't. That counts for something."

Erin was quiet a moment. "I kept picking up my phone to call you," she said. "Every few days. I'd get as far as your name and then I'd picture Wade sitting there next to you and I just couldn't do it."

"I know."

"I wasn't sure you'd believe me."

I stopped. Turned around. "Erin. Look at me."

She looked up.

"I will always believe you. Whatever it is. I will always start from believing you. Do you understand me?"

Her chin shook. She pressed her lips together to stop it. "Okay," she said.

I turned back to the stove. The eggs were setting at the edges.

"He really did call me selfish," she said. "He said it like he'd thought it through and decided it was just a fact."

"I know."

"It made me feel insane. Like maybe I'd made the whole thing bigger in my head than it really was."

"You didn't."

"I know that now." She tugged her sleeves down over her hands. "Took me a while."

I slid the eggs onto a plate and set it in front of her. She looked at it a second, then picked up the fork.

"What happens now?" she asked around a bite.

"Tonight, nothing. Tonight you eat, and you sleep in your own bed."

"And after tonight?"

I sat down across from her with my tea. "After tonight I figure out what I do about a marriage that's four weeks old and already sitting on a lie." I wrapped both hands around the mug. "That's tomorrow's problem."

She nodded and kept eating. Outside the wind kicked up and rattled the window once in its frame.

"Mom?"

"Yeah."

"I'm glad I came back."

"So am I," I said. "More than you know."

She finished the eggs. I washed the pan. We didn't say much after that, but the quiet was different from the quiet in the hallway. This one had some warmth in it.

I was reaching for the kitchen light switch when my phone buzzed on the counter. A text from a number I didn't have saved.

Hi Nora. My name is Sabrina. I think you and I need to talk. I'm sorry to reach out like this. There's something Wade hasn't told you — something past what you probably already found out. Please don't delete this.