It did not last, and I did not indulge it, but it was there for a moment, because there is something genuinely terrible about watching a lie collapse under its author, even a lie as cruel as hers.

But then I looked at Chloe, whose birthday card was about to be lifted out of that box, and at Daisy, who was about to see a photograph of her own first day of school that her mother had sent back unopened, and whatever pity I felt for Laura evaporated.

She had chosen this.

Every step of it.

She had chosen to leave, and chosen to stay away, and chosen to lie about it, and chosen, finally, to stand up at her daughter’s wedding and tell that lie to a room full of strangers.

The box was not being done to her.