The emerald dress was gone. She looked younger and more exhausted, like prom had belonged to another girl entirely. “Are we getting a test?” she asked. David nodded.
“Tomorrow if possible.” “Good.” Sarah stood. “Megan, I am sorry.”
Megan looked at her for a long time. “Did my mom know?” “No,” Sarah said. Megan turned to David.
“You let her die without knowing?” The room went utterly still. David could have argued that the possibility had seemed remote. He could have said he was protecting Laura during cancer, protecting Megan during grief, protecting Connor’s relationship with Paul.
All those sentences contained pieces of truth. None answered the moral question. “Yes,” David said. Megan’s eyes filled.
“That is disgusting.” David lowered his head. “I know.” “No, you do not get to say that like knowing makes you better.”
She went back upstairs. Sarah’s sister arrived ten minutes later. Connor left without saying goodbye to Megan or David. At the door, he paused only long enough to look back at the family photographs on the sideboard, most of them containing Laura.
The expression on his face was impossible to read. The house after they left felt desecrated by ordinary objects. The corsage. The lamp.