PART 2

Gregory walked through the front entrance, stopping dead in his tracks.

He saw me sitting there first, and then his eyes drifted over to Violet.

His entire face turned completely white.

He did not look like a man who had been caught cheating with a secret lover; he looked like a man who had finally arrived at the end of a long promise.

Violet stood up halfway from her seat and then sat back down.

“I called him right after you hung up,” she explained gently before looking up at my husband.

“Did you keep it all these years?”

Gregory stood in the aisle with his car keys pressed so hard against his palm that his knuckles had gone white.

“Yes,” he said.

“I kept it.”

I looked between them.

“Kept what?”

Neither answered.

The waitress approached with her coffee pot, took one look at our faces, and quietly retreated.

“Sit down,” I told Gregory.

“And please don’t tell me another story about an imaginary tattoo.”

He slid into the booth opposite me.