Margo is visibly offended. “I’m not here for money. I wouldn’t take it from him even if he offered. I have plenty. So, forget money.” Her tone moderates with a return of doubt. “Think Mom. There were things she told me…”

We wait through beats of stillness. My anxiety rises. “What, Margo?” I coax.

She is silent—and not for effect, though she is perfectly capable of that. Her uncertainty clearly has to do with whatever it was that Mom said.

“You’re making me nervous,” I advise in a low singsong.

Finally, tentatively, she speaks. “Dan has been after me to talk with you, with you both, because it’s been eating at me. She was angry when we first moved to Chicago, and even after her life came together there, she would get heated when she talked about Dad. She did have feelings for him.”

“He had feelings for her,” Anne corrects, as though the two can’t both be true.

“What is it, Margo?” I’m convinced by now that it has to do with whoever fathered me, that Margo doesn’t want Anne to hear because she will latch onto Mom’s infidelity as proof of blame for the divorce.

“Did you know that Mom and Elizabeth went to school together?” Margo asks.

I’m taken aback.

Anne is puzzled, too. “School? Like high school?”

“College. They were friends before Dad met either of them.”

That’s not what I remember. “I thought they met after the houses were built here.”

“Well, that’s what we were told. But they both went to U Penn. I checked it out.”

“It’s a huge school,” Anne argues. “Are we supposed to believe that they met there, two individuals out of thousands, and then ended up enemies here?”

“They weren’t enemies back then. Mom said she and Elizabeth were together at a party in Philly when they met Dad.”

Anne laughs at that. “Party? Dad?”

Ignoring her, Margo says, “He was at the law school there those same years. Mom said he started dating her, then had an affair with Elizabeth behind her back.”

“And Mom agreed to live in a house right beside her after that?” Anne asks in disbelief. “What woman would do that? Come on, Margo. You always said Dad played around. What’s new here?”

“Mom loved Elizabeth.”

The words hang in the air.

“Loved,” I echo.

“As in, loved?” Anne asks.

“Was attracted to,” Margo confirms. Her voice is apologetic, but not in doubt about what Mom said. Rather, she regrets betraying a confidence.

I’m dumbstruck. Nothing in my mother’s manner ever led me to think she was drawn to Elizabeth in any way, the very least being physical. “Mom said that?”

Margo folds her arms, though whether to brace herself or show strength, I’m not sure. “She did.”