“I agree, Joey. I don’t know, maybe part of us wanted to get caught that first summer. Wanted to make it so we could be together. But it seemed so impossible. We both had lives we liked. Rand and Maisy got on less so, but he’d also met her right after me. They’d also gotten pregnant soon and built his business. She was loyal, as far as I knew. This was supposed to be our summer in the place where we fell in love.”

“And then?”

“And then we couldn’t fall out of love. And then our families grew to love each other. Your father and Rand had a genuine friendship. Me and Maisy too.”

“Come on, Mom? Genuine? You were sleeping with her husband.”

“I know. It was awful.” Her mother put a hand to her chest. Her hand had prominent veins and little brown age spots Joey had never noticed before.

Suddenly Joey thought of something. “And did you meet during the year too? Did you rendezvous while I was in school and Dad was at work?”

Bea went back to staring at her nails again. “We did a couple of times after that first summer, but to be honest, there was something wrong about it. We decided we could only be a summer thing.”

Joey’s jaw clenched. “Let me get this straight. There was something wrong about cheating on Dad when he was far away, but not when he was sitting across the table?”

“Oh, Joey.” Her mother wrapped her fingers in the fringe dangling off a throw pillow. “All I can tell you is that Rand and I met a few weekends outside the summer, and it just felt so deceptive.”

“But you liked the adventure. It almost sounds like…like you wanted to get caught.”

“I don’t know, Joey,” her mother whispered. “Maybe sometimes you have to risk hurting people you love in order to be happy.”

“Hurting me, you mean. Hurting Dad. But I don’t get one thing.” Joey forced herself to say the word. “Lily.”

Her mother buried her head in her knees. “You were never supposed to find out about Lily.”

“I think it’s a miracle no one found out sooner. Well, Leo.” Joey took a deep breath. “Did you always know Lily wasn’t Dad’s?”

After some time, Bea lifted her head back up, her eyes smeared in mascara. “I was pretty sure. I stayed later on Corfu that summer. We had sex once, your dad and I, before he took you back to Florida to start school, but I wasn’t ovulating then.