“You’re sending me home?”

“I’m trying to lower the tension.”

“Whose tension?”

I didn’t answer quickly enough.

Hannah nodded.

She reached behind herself and untied her apron.

“I’ve worked here for eight months.”

“Hannah—”

“I’ve stayed late when Margaret was sick. I’ve changed classes. I’ve come in on weekends.”

She folded the apron.

“And you’re still standing there deciding which one of us is telling the truth.”

Lauren sighed.

“Please don’t turn this into a performance.”

Hannah didn’t look at her.

She placed the apron in front of me.

“If after eight months you still have to decide, I already have my answer.”

Then she picked up her bag.

Grandma appeared at the end of the hallway.

“Where are you going?”

Hannah stopped.

Her face softened.

“Home, Margaret.”

“When are you coming back?”

Hannah looked at me.

“I don’t know.”

Then she left.

The front door closed.

Lauren exhaled.

“Thank God.”

I turned.

“What did you say?”

She was already stacking the seating charts.

“Maybe now we can get through the next ten days without another crisis.”

She carried the papers upstairs.

I stayed where I was.

Hannah’s folded apron was still on the table.

Grandma looked at it.

Then at me.

She didn’t say anything.

That silence followed me for the rest of the night.

“Did You Think She Was Lying?”

At twelve-thirty, I found Grandma in the living room.

She had a blanket over her knees and the television turned low.

I sat across from her.

She didn’t look away from the screen.

“You sent Hannah home.”

“Temporarily.”

Grandma muted the television.

“Why?”

“There was another argument.”

“About Patricia?”

I looked up.

“How do you know?”

Grandma finally faced me.

“Lauren came in here yesterday and complained that Hannah hadn’t moved Patricia to table twelve yet.”

I felt my stomach tighten.

“Yesterday?”

“Around four.”

I leaned forward.

“Lauren said today she never asked her to do it.”

Grandma gave me a long look.

“I know.”

“How?”

“Because this isn’t the first time.”

Then she started telling me things.

Small things.

Lauren telling Grandma she’d agreed to move a doctor’s appointment when she hadn’t.

Lauren giving Susan one instruction and denying it later.

Lauren asking Kevin to move patio furniture, then complaining to my father that he’d done it without permission.

I rubbed my forehead.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

Grandma’s eyebrows lifted.

“We did.”

I remembered.

Months earlier, Grandma had said Lauren could be difficult with the people working in the house.

I’d told her Lauren was under stress.

I’d explained Lauren to the person warning me about Lauren.

Grandma leaned forward.

“Michael, answer one question.”

“Okay.”

“Did you actually think Hannah was lying today?”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

“Michael.”

I looked toward the dining room.

I could still see the apron.

“No.”

Grandma nodded.

“Then why did you send her home?”

I stared at my hands.

The answer sounded worse when I had to say it aloud.

“Because the wedding is in ten days.”

Grandma didn’t respond.

She didn’t need to.

The next morning, I spoke separately with Susan, Kevin, and Robert.

Their stories matched.

Kevin took out his phone.

“I make her text me now.”

There were months of short messages from Lauren.

Move the chairs to the patio.

Leave those boxes downstairs.

Don’t trim the hedge until Friday.

I handed the phone back.

“Why keep all this?”

Kevin shrugged.

“Because I got tired of being told I remembered wrong.”

I went outside and sat in my car.

For years, my mother Linda had cleaned other people’s houses to raise me.

When I was sixteen, I’d once complained about a wealthy client who walked straight past her without saying hello.

Mom had been folding cleaning cloths.

She’d said:

“If you want to know what someone’s really like, watch how they treat people they don’t need to impress.”

I’d forgotten that sentence.

Apparently, I had needed to.

I called Hannah.

She didn’t answer.

I sent her one message.

“I was wrong. I didn’t send you home because I believed you were lying. I sent you home because dealing with you was easier than dealing with Lauren. That’s worse. I owe you an apology.”

Three hours later, my phone buzzed.

“Coffee shop on Fifth. Tomorrow. 10.”

I looked at the wedding countdown on the calendar.

Nine days.

For the first time, I wasn’t wondering how to get everyone peacefully to the wedding.

I was wondering why I was still trying.