Diane did not shake her hand.
"Thirty-four years," Diane said without preamble. "Start at the beginning. And don't tell me you loved him. I already know that. Tell me how it started, how it continued, and why my mother had to find out from a piece of paper instead of from the man who owed her the truth."
Margaret told her.
She told her about a professional conference in Boston in 1986, a hotel bar, a conversation about ledgers and loneliness that should have ended when the check arrived. She told her about the first letter, the first weekend, the first time Robert said I can't leave her and meant it as both vow and wound. She told her about the years of silence, the years of return, the cabin in Maine, the rent checks refused, the lemon candies that were not a nurse's kindness but a lover's last dialect. She told her about the will — how Robert had drafted it in a burst of panicked generosity after Margaret mentioned the duplex sale, how she had argued against it, how he had signed anyway because men like Robert believed that property could apologize for what character could not.
Diane listened. She cried once, briefly, angrily, and wiped her face with the heel of her hand. She asked about birthdays. She asked about whether Robert had ever said Helen's name in Margaret's presence. She asked whether Margaret had attended the funeral (she had not; she had sat in her car three blocks away and listened to the bells). She asked the question Helen had been afraid she would ask:
"Did he love you more than he loved us?"
Margaret shook her head immediately. "No. He loved you differently. Love isn't a pie, Diane, even when it behaves like one. He was faithful to a broken system. That is not the same as being a good man. It is also not the same as being a monster. I am sorry you have to inherit the difference."