CHAPTER TWO — THE PROGRAM
Andrew went upstairs without using the elevator.
The stairwell smelled of chlorine and fresh paint.
His hands were shaking when he reached their room.
On the desk lay the retirement program Hannah had been editing.
The cover showed Lillian Mercer smiling beneath a schoolyard oak tree.
Beneath her name was a sentence Andrew had never read before.
A good teacher shows us that love means releasing people when their season is over.
Andrew opened the document on the hotel tablet.
The final page listed a surprise closing performance titled New Beginnings.
Hannah had not mentioned any performance.
He called the event coordinator, a cheerful woman named Denise Park.
“I need to confirm Saturday’s closing program,” Andrew said.
“Of course,” Denise replied.
“We’re delighted to help with the transition announcement.
”
Andrew looked at the wall.
“What transition announcement?”
Denise paused.
“Mrs. Mercer explained that you and Hannah would tell the family you’re separating after your mother’s tribute.”
“She told you that?”
“She said the timing was a family decision.”
Andrew lowered himself onto the bed.
“Did she ask the hotel to prepare anything?”
“A screen, a microphone, and an adjoining private room for the family conversation,” Denise answered.
“The video presentation is already loaded, but we haven’t reviewed its contents.”
Andrew stared at the printed program.
“Please don’t play anything involving my marriage until I have spoken to you in person.”
“Certainly,” Denise said.
“I can place everything on hold.”
“And please don’t tell my mother there’s been a change.”
“I understand.”
After the call, Andrew opened his messages to Hannah.
Her last text before the pool had read, I love our life, even when we’re too busy to see it.
He read it once and put the phone facedown.
Someone knocked.
Ethan stood in the hallway holding a small hotel envelope.
“I’m not here to fight,” he said.
“I wanted you to see this before you hear it from somebody else.”
The envelope held a copy of the weekend schedule.
A handwritten note beneath Saturday’s dinner read, Ethan joins Hannah after the announcement.
Andrew looked up.
“You were coming to my mother’s celebration?”
Ethan nodded miserably.
“Hannah invited me.”
“As what?”
“Her future partner.”
Andrew said nothing.
“She told me your mother already knew I existed,” Ethan added.
“She said the announcement would be awkward, but she wanted everybody to meet honestly afterward.”
“And you believed that?”
“I believed her when she showed me photographs of the separate bedrooms she said you were using.”
Andrew remembered Hannah’s insistence that they try separate rooms while she recovered from a back injury.
She had told him she slept better on a firmer mattress.
There had been no argument.
“She took pictures of the guest room,” Andrew said.
“Then she made a story out of it.”
Ethan held the doorframe.
“There’s more.”
Andrew waited.
“She asked me to help write her remarks for Saturday,” Ethan said.
“She wanted people to understand why she’d stayed in a marriage she said was already dead.”
“Did you write them?”
“Some of them.”
“Then I want to read what you helped create.”
Ethan looked down the corridor.
“I have the draft on my laptop.”
Andrew almost closed the door.
Instead, he stepped aside.
“Show me.”
