Paige nodded. She was doing something I had watched her do since she was a child — marshaling herself, finding the place inside her where she could be steady enough to say hard things.
“When I met Andrew,” she said, “I told him my parents were dead.”
She looked at Andrew when she said it, not at me. That mattered, I thought.
“I told him before our second date. We were talking about family and I said that both my parents had passed. My dad — that’s true. He died of cancer seven years ago. My mom…” She stopped. “My mom is here.”
She looked at me then.
“I knew what I was saying wasn’t true. I did it because I was scared.”
“Scared of what?” Andrew said. His voice was even. He had, I thought, been sitting with this question for a week and he had a right to the direct answer.
Paige took a breath. “Scared that if you knew where I came from — what my family actually looked like — you would decide I wasn’t what you wanted.”
Andrew frowned. “What do you think my family looks like? What did you think I would think?”
“I thought your family was –” She stopped, started again. “Your parents are educated. Your mom was a principal. Your dad is an accountant. They have this house. I thought if you knew my mom worked in a hospital kitchen, that we grew up the way we did, that it would change how you saw me.”