Maggie hesitated. “Did he ever tell you why he chose my mother?”
“He didn’t choose anyone.”
I frowned.
“He didn’t choose anyone. He signed up as a donor, and the doctors found someone who needed his help.”
Maggie stared at me. “That’s not exactly what happened.”
“What are you talking about?”
She glanced down at the bag, gripping its handles tightly.
“You should sit down.”
“There’s something about Cooper you need to know.”
My stomach tightened. “Then tell me.”
She looked toward the open doorway.
“Could I come inside? I think you should sit down for this.”
Maggie followed me into the kitchen and sat across from me at the table.
“I opened it.”
“Where did you get that bag?” I asked.
“I found it in my mother’s closet last week. She was in the hospital for a routine checkup, and I was helping her clean out some things.”
“And you recognized it?”
“Not at first. But then I opened it.”
She unzipped the bag and carefully removed a small stack of photographs and several envelopes.
“What do you mean?”
“My mother never told me she knew Cooper personally,” Maggie continued. “I thought she’d never even met him before the surgery.”
My stomach tightened. “What do you mean, knew him?”
Instead of answering, she handed me a photograph.
Cooper was sitting on a couch beside a woman who looked to be in her fifties. His arm was wrapped around her shoulders, and they were both smiling.
“That’s my mother.”
I hadn’t seen that smile in two years.
“That’s my mother,” Maggie said quietly.
I stared at the picture.
Cooper had never shown me this photograph. He’d never even mentioned meeting Evelyn.
I turned it over. Written in his familiar handwriting were the words:
“I started wondering.”
“After all these years, we’re finally together.”
My heart sank.
“Are you telling me my husband was having an affair with your mother?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie admitted. “She never mentioned any relationship between them. But when I found these pictures…”
She looked away.
“We need to find out.”
“I started wondering the same thing.”
I glanced at the remaining envelopes. “Then we need to find out what really happened.”
Maggie nodded and pushed the bag toward me.
“That’s why I’m here.”
Maggie spread the remaining photographs across the table.
In one, Cooper and Evelyn were sitting across from each other at a restaurant, laughing over something I would never know.
I remembered the evening.
Another showed them walking beside a lake, their arms linked.
Then I picked up a third picture. They were standing outside a small house, and Cooper was wearing his favorite blue shirt.
I recognized it immediately.
Because I remembered the evening he’d come home wearing that exact shirt.
He’d told me he’d spent the day helping an old friend with some work outside town.
Cooper had disappeared for hours.
“You look awfully pleased with yourself,” I’d teased when he walked through the door.
He’d kissed my cheek and grinned. “Just had a really good day, sweetheart.”
I’d assumed he’d enjoyed catching up with his friend.
Now I wondered who he’d actually spent that day with.
“She had company.”
Thinking back, I remembered several other occasions when Cooper had disappeared for hours. Sometimes he claimed he had work to finish. Other times, someone apparently needed help.
I’d never questioned him.
Why would I?
“Did your mother ever mention these trips?” I asked.
Maggie shook her head.
“‘Id get another chance.”
“She’d sometimes say she had company, but she never told me who.”
She reached deeper into the bag and pulled out a small greeting card.
“There’s this, too.”
I unfolded it.
Inside, written in Cooper’s unmistakable handwriting, was a single sentence.
“Does your mother know?”
“I never thought I’d get another chance to have you in my life.”
I read it three times. Fourteen years of marriage, and my husband had apparently been meeting another woman behind my back.
But something still bothered me.
“If they were having an affair,” I whispered, “why would he donate part of his liver to her?”
Maggie shook her head.
Maggie looked at me helplessly. I stared at the photographs scattered across our kitchen table.
Perhaps Cooper had loved Evelyn so much that he’d been willing to risk his life for her.
And perhaps I’d never really known the man I’d married.
I stared at the photographs scattered across the table, feeling increasingly sick.
“Does your mother know you brought these?”
“Why?”
Maggie shook her head.
“No. I found the bag while she was at a doctor’s appointment. When I asked her about Cooper, she got upset and told me never to mention him again.”
“Why?”
“She wouldn’t explain!”
I picked up the photograph of Cooper outside the little house.
“He was willing to die!”
“Is this where your mother lives?”
“Yes.”
“Then take me there.”
Maggie stared at me.
“You want to confront her?”
“I’m not blaming her.”
“Your mother knew my husband. She spent months with him while I was sitting at home believing he was helping friends. And now I find out he was willing to die for her!”
“Please don’t blame her for what happened to Cooper.”
I looked at Maggie sharply.
“I’m not blaming her for the surgery. I’m blaming her for keeping whatever happened between them a secret for two years!”
“About forty minutes.”
Maggie lowered her eyes.
“You’re right. I don’t understand why she lied to me, either.”
I stood and grabbed my car keys.
“How far away does she live?”
