I had to set the paper down on the table and just breathe for a second. Because Eleanor calls me every single Tuesday to chat. Sweet as pie. And every Wednesday for the last year or so, that woman has told me she couldn’t talk because she had her Bible study. “You know how I am about my Wednesdays, dear.” Bible study.

She’d even ask me to pray for the ladies in her group. There was no group. There was a baby. Our blood, that I never knew breathed air, and his grandma was the one buckling him into the car seat.

That’s the part I can’t put down. Frank lying, I almost understand that. Men get weak and stupid and selfish, and fifty one with a twenty six year old, well, it’s the oldest dumb story there is. But Eleanor sat across from me at Christmas. She let me cut her turkey. She held my hand at her own husband’s funeral two years ago and called me her daughter. And the whole time she was driving to Hillcrest every Wednesday to pick up the grandbaby she helped keep secret from me.

I didn’t confront Frank that night. I’ll tell you what I did. I waited until Tuesday, when Eleanor called like always, all cheerful. And before she could get to her usual chatter I just asked her, real quiet. “How was Bible study yesterday, Eleanor?”

She went still. I could hear it. That little catch in her breath that told me she knew that I knew. “Oh,” she said. “It was fine, dear.” That was all she could get out. “It was fine.”

I hung up the phone. I’m still sitting here at this kitchen table, if you want the truth of it. The wedding photo’s still on the wall. Frank’s still snoring down the hall like a man without a worry in the world.

I haven’t said a word to him. I keep thinking I’ll do it tomorrow, and then tomorrow I don’t.

I keep looking at that emergency contact line in my head. Grandmother. Of all the people in this world, she’s the one they trusted with that baby. And I’m the one they trusted with nothing at all.