"My daughter-in-law slapped me in front of 250 guests at the $45,000 wedding I helped pay for—then demanded I leave. But she had no idea what I was about to cancel.

By 9:00 AM on Monday, the digital shockwaves of Saturday night had officially reached epic proportions.

I was sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of freshly brewed coffee and the local Sunday paper when my landline phone rang. Not my cell phone—that was still blissfully silent behind its digital wall—but the old landline attached to the kitchen wall, a number only close family and long-time neighbors had.

I let it ring three times, then picked up the receiver.

"Margaret?"

It wasn't Daniel. It was Brenda Vance—no relation to Tiffany’s snobbish family, thank God, but my next-door neighbor of twenty-two years and the sharpest gossip in a five-mile radius.

"Good morning, Brenda," I said calmly, taking a sip of my coffee.

"Margaret Bennett, are you sitting down?" Brenda’s voice was pitched at an octave that suggested she had just witnessed a triple homicide or won the lottery. "Because if you aren't sitting down, you need to sit right this second."

"I’m sitting, Brenda. What’s wrong?"

"Wrong? Honey, the whole town is talking about nothing else! My niece’s best friend was invited to that fancy wedding on Saturday night at the riverside estate. She sent me three videos at midnight!" Brenda paused for dramatic effect, drawing in a sharp breath. "Did that bride—that stuck-up little piece of work Tiffany—actually slap you in front of two hundred and fifty people?"

I blinked. Word travels fast in suburban America, but satellite-speed gossip was truly a marvel of modern technology.

"Let’s just say there was a disagreement over champagne, Brenda," I replied cautiously.

"A disagreement? Margaret, she hit you! And then—and this is the part where everyone is cheering in the grocery store parking lot—you called the coordinator and canceled the late-night food, the open bar, and the farewell brunch right then and there on speakerphone?"

I couldn't help a small, dry smile from touching the corners of my lips. "The brunch was very expensive, Brenda."

"Expensive? It was eight thousand dollars!" Brenda shrieked with delight. "And get this—Richard and Elaine tried to check out of their luxury hotel suite on Sunday morning, and their credit card got declined because Richard’s accounts are locked up by federal investigators! They had to call a cousin in Connecticut just to wire them enough money to pay for their Sunday breakfast!"

I raised my eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"Oh, it’s rich, Margaret. It’s poetic justice of the highest order. But..." Brenda’s tone shifted slightly, turning hesitant and sympathetic. "How are you holding up, honey? Where’s Daniel? Is he still with her?"

"I don't know, Brenda," I said honestly, looking out the kitchen window at my neatly trimmed backyard. "And for the first time in a year, I genuinely don't care."

"Good for you," Brenda snapped fiercely. "You gave that boy your life, your savings, and half your property, and what did he do? Stood there like a bump on a log while his trophy wife smacked a sixty-two-year-old widow. If that were my son, I’d have left him in the dumpster behind the venue."

"Well," I chuckled softly, "I didn't leave him in a dumpster. I just left him to figure out life without my checkbook."

After hanging up with Brenda, I walked over to the front porch to pick up the morning paper. As I bent down to scoop up the delivery bag, I noticed a sleek black sedan idling curbside near my driveway.

The window rolled down half an inch.

It was Daniel’s silver sedan—or rather, the Honda Civic I had helped him lease two years ago.

Daniel was sitting in the driver’s seat, looking like he hadn't slept a wink. His hair was messy, his eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark purple bruises of exhaustion, and his knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel.

He didn't get out of the car. He just sat there, staring across the thirty feet of green lawn separating my front porch from the street, waiting—as he had always waited—for me to make the first move.