My husband didn’t flinch when she said it.
He just set his fork down very slowly, looked at our daughter, and said nothing. And that silence — that horrible, loaded silence — told me something was very, very wrong.
Let me back up.
My name is Carol. I’m fifty-three years old. My husband, David, is sixty-seven. Yes, fourteen years between us. I know. I’ve heard every comment there is to hear over the twenty-one years we’ve been married.
But this wasn’t about our age gap.
This was about what my daughter knew.
Grace is twenty-two. She’s our youngest. Sharp as a tack and twice as cutting when she wants to be. She’d flown home from Edinburgh for the weekend — first visit in four months — and I’d made a proper Sunday roast, the whole thing.
Everything felt normal until Grace looked across the table at David and said, quietly, almost casually:





