Inside the briefcase were not love letters, not another woman’s photographs, not the evidence of the affair we had all quietly feared. There were medications. Rows of neatly organized prescription bottles, a folded medical chart, a small stack of children’s drawings, and a laminated visiting schedule from a care facility twenty minutes south. On top of it all sat a photograph of a young woman, maybe thirty, in a hospital bed, her eyes half-closed, and written across the visiting schedule in Gerald’s careful hand were the words: Evening dose, 8:15 p.m. Do not be late. My mother’s hand stayed pressed against her mouth as she lifted the photograph, and I watched her go from heartbreak to confusion to something she could not yet name.

“Grandma,” Brianna said, still shaking, “I followed him. He didn’t go to another woman. He went to the hospice place off the county road.” She swallowed hard. “The woman in that picture is his daughter. I heard him talking to a nurse through the door. He gives her the evening medication himself, every single night, because he doesn’t trust anyone else to do it exactly right.” Brianna wiped her face. “That’s why he leaves. That’s why he never invites you over. His whole house is set up for her, for when she’s well enough to come home.” My mother lowered herself into a chair, the photograph trembling in her fingers, and asked the only question that mattered. “Why would he hide something so beautiful?”