“I want to introduce someone special to all of you.”
Graham came back holding a woman’s hand. Fitted red dress. Not older than thirty.
A glass clinked somewhere, then went silent. My ears began to ring.
“This is Lida, my girlfriend,” my hasbund said, smiling as if delivering good news. “I know this is unexpected, but I want to be transparent with the people who love me.”
My fingers went cold against the stem of my glass.
“My wife,” Graham said, gesturing at me without looking, “was just a caregiver I happened to be married to. We all know it. And it’s finally time for us to get divorced.”
“This is Lida, my girlfriend.”
The room did not gasp. It stopped breathing.
Lida, smiling nervously beside him, tucked her hair behind her ear.
“Eleanor has been wonderful,” Graham added, as if he were thanking a nurse for her years of service. “But people grow. People change. I have changed.”
A chair scraped. Someone whispered my name from the next table.
My oldest son, Daniel, half rose from his seat. I shook my head at him, barely, and he sank back down.
Then I felt it. A steady hand resting on my shoulder, warm through the fabric of my dress.
I did not need to turn to know it was Walter.
“Eleanor has been wonderful.”
“Eleanor,” he said quietly, only to me.
Walter stepped past me, his cane tapping softly against the wood floor, and made his way toward Graham at the front of the room.
“Son,” Walter called out. “Congratulations on your honesty. In that case, I’d like to give a toast.”
Graham smiled, expecting his father’s blessing. He gestured grandly toward the mic.
