“What happened?” I asked.
Travis wouldn't look at me.
His mother had hung up.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Finally, he sat beside me.
“Before you came into my life,” he said, “I was engaged.”
I swallowed.
“To whom?”
“My mother's choice.”
I almost laughed from relief.
“That can't be what she's hiding.”
“It isn't.”
He reached for my hand.
“The woman I was engaged to disappeared three days before our wedding.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Travis looked toward the window.
“She looked almost exactly like you.”
I pulled my hand away.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“I know.”
Then someone knocked on our front door.
Three slow knocks.
Travis stood.
When he opened it, an older woman was waiting outside.
She looked directly at me.
Then she whispered,
“Your mother-in-law isn't trying to separate you because she hates you.”
She handed me a photograph.
“She is trying to protect you from her son.”
