I waited.
“I didn’t know your last name for years,” she continued. “I knew Ethan. I knew your mom used to pick you up in a red car. I knew you moved not long after Nora got sick. By the time I thought seriously about finding you, I had almost nothing useful.”
“But eventually you did.”
“Seventeen years later, your face showed up on my phone.”
I rubbed both palms against my jeans.
“And you swiped right.”
“Yes.”
“To tell me Nora died. That was the whole plan?”
“One coffee. Tell you who I was. Tell you what happened. Thank you for being her friend.”
I looked at her.
“And then?”
Claire gave a tired little laugh.
“Then you ordered another coffee. You stayed until they started stacking chairs around us.”
“That doesn’t answer why you lied, Claire.”
“No.”
Good.
At least she wasn’t trying to pretend that it did.
