I swallow. Thirty percent is not a lot.

“But if the treatments don’t go well…” I hear the shrug in her voice. “It could be less than a year; maybe much less.”

I glance out the window. How surreal it is, all this snowy beauty. The peacefulness.

“What about Sam?” I say quietly. “What are you going to tell him?”

The words have barely left my lips when a rustling sound from the doorway makes me stiffen.

“When are you going to tell me what?” a young voice says, and I turn to see my nephew standing in the doorway.

*

“Do you understand, darling?” Abigail’s saying. She’s on FaceTime now, with my phone planted in the middle of the kitchen table for Sam’s benefit.

I wasn’t supposed to give the game away. Abigail was supposed to explain it to him all in person when she came home. But that wasn’t going to work anymore; not after Sam had overheard what he did. Perhaps if I’d had my head together I could have covered it up better and found some excuse, but such an idea was beyond me today.

“Do you, Sam?” Abigail repeats. “I’m sorry I waited to tell you. I just…had so much to figure out. And I didn’t want to bring her into your life unless she seemed like a good person. A safe person.” My sister hesitates. “And I wasn’t at my best, Sam. It was all a bit of a shock to me. I probably wasn’t quite thinking straight.”

Sam listens, still as a statue. He’s stopped casting glances at me, at Oliver; at Mom. The past few minutes he’s just been staring at a spot on the table.

I know Abigail didn’t want to share this conversation with Mom; she doesn’t even want to hear the sound of Mom’s voice right now. But to her credit, she manages not to show that anger around Sam.

And she doesn’t tell Sam that Lorna’s sick. I don’t know if she just intuitively feels that it would be too much or if she’s thinking of the OCD thing, and how badly Dad’s death threw Sam. Either way, she doesn’t mention it, which I think is probably wise right now.

At a certain point, Sam raises his eyes to Mom.

“Why didn’t you tell Mom?” he says, his voice small but hard as a pebble. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

I see Mom swallow.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” she says. “It was…it was a misjudgment. Your grandfather and I, we made a choice and once it was made, we had to stand by it.”

Sam scowls.

“He wasn’t my real grandpa,” he says. “And you’re not even my real grandma.”

In a second, Mom’s eyes well up.