I grabbed the other side before she could pull it away.
“Give me back my fruit.”
“You’ve lost your mind!”
By then, several neighbors had gathered near the sidewalk.
Monica looked around and realized that making an even bigger scene would only attract more attention.
Then she noticed one of the photographs I’d placed beside the sign.
It was the old photograph I’d found online.
A picture of Monica and Daniel together decades earlier.
Her expression changed.
“You stupid woman.”
My grip tightened.
“What did you say?”
She stared at me.
“You really don’t understand anything, do you?”
“Then explain it.”
“Twenty-seven years, Claire. You had twenty-seven years with that man, and somehow you never noticed what was right in front of you.”
The apples suddenly didn’t matter.
Neither did the sign.
Only one question did.
“Were you having an affair with my husband?”
Monica’s face hardened.
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not. I was never Daniel’s mistress. Not once during your marriage.”
“Then how did you know about the red light?”
Her jaw tightened.
“Because Daniel was on his way to meet me that night.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“We were supposed to see each other. Daniel never showed up. Later, I heard he’d hit some woman in a crosswalk and taken her to the hospital.”
Some woman.
Me.
“You were dating him?”
“Yes.”
“And after he met me?”
“He ended things with me.”
There was no pride in her answer.
Still, something wasn’t adding up.
I looked toward Monica’s house.
The same house she had inherited from her parents nine years earlier.
The house beside ours.
