Grandma stopped talking.
Dinner was loud and warm. Skyler helped Mom with the potatoes. She laughed at Dad’s fishing joke, the one even I had stopped laughing at.
Grandma barely said a word.
But she watched Skyler the whole time.
“She’s perfect,” Mom whispered to me in the hallway. “You two are going to be so happy.”
I believed her.
After dinner, Mom clapped her hands.
“Game time! Truth or Hot Sauce. Family tradition.”
“Oh no,” Dad groaned. “Last year I cried for ten minutes.”
“You asked for the extra hot one,” Mom said.
Everyone agreed. Even Grandma, who never agreed to anything.
“What’s Truth or Hot Sauce?” Skyler asked.
“Truth or Dare, but the dare is a spoonful of this.” Mom held up a tiny red bottle. “We need something to spin. Sweetheart, you’re closest. Second shelf in that cupboard. The green bottle.”
Skyler reached up and pulled it down. She held it out with both hands.
Mom took it.
Then she stopped.
Her eyes dropped to Skyler’s open palm.
“Huh,” she murmured. “That’s odd. There’s no line.”
“What line?” I asked.
“It’s nothing,” Mom said quickly, letting go. “Silly hobby. Forget I said anything.”
Skyler curled her fingers into a fist.
Then she laughed. “Blank slate. Fresh start.”
Everyone laughed.
Except Grandma.
We sat in a circle on the living room floor, the hot sauce in the middle like a campfire. Mom spun first. The bottle landed on me.
“Truth,” I said.
“What do you want most from the future?” Mom asked.
“Easy.” I grinned. “A loud house. Kids everywhere, a dog that steals socks. Basically this place, but with me in charge of the pancakes.”
Mom clapped. Dad raised his glass. Skyler smiled at me.
Then Grandma reached for the bottle.
She gave it one slow spin and watched it turn.
It slowed down. Stopped.
It pointed at Skyler.
“Truth or hot sauce?” Grandma asked.
The room went still.
Skyler looked at the little red bottle.
“Hot sauce,” she said.
She said it too fast.
Mom handed her the spoon. Skyler swallowed it without blinking, then coughed until her eyes watered.
I laughed and rubbed her back.
She didn’t laugh.
I woke around two in the morning.
Skyler’s side of the bed was empty. Voices drifted up from the kitchen.
I crept to the top of the stairs.
“You need to tell him the truth,” Grandma said. “If you don’t, I will.”
My whole body went cold.
“You know perfectly well you can’t tell him anything,” Skyler whispered.
Silence.
“Maybe I can’t,” Grandma said. “But you can. And you should.”
“Please. I love him.”
I leaned forward. My foot hit a loose step, and it creaked like a gunshot.
The kitchen went silent.
I ran back to bed and pretended to sleep. A minute later, Skyler slid in beside me.
I stared at the ceiling until the window turned gray. I didn’t suspect that this wouldn’t be my last sleepless night.
At breakfast, once we were alone, I asked, “What truth are you supposed to tell me?”
She set her coffee down carefully, like it might break.
“Then why can’t you tell me?”
“Can you give me some time?”
“I know.” Her voice cracked. “Please.”
I hated it. But I nodded. “Fine. Not forever, though.”
I thought that was the end of it.
Then, before lunch, Grandma called everyone into the living room.
“I’ve decided to change my will,” she said.
Dad blinked. “Mom, what?”
“The house in Denver. The land. The investments.” She folded her hands. “All of it was going to Daniel.”
Then she turned to me.
“If you marry Skyler, you won’t inherit a single dollar.”
Nobody moved.
“And the cabin,” she added quietly. “That, too.”
My throat tightened. Grandpa built that cabin with his own hands. I learned to swim off that dock. I’d always known it would be mine.
“Mom, you can’t be serious,” Dad said.
“I am.”
I stared at her. “You met her yesterday. Why do you hate her?”
“Then what is it about?”
Grandma looked straight at Skyler.
“She knows.”
Skyler didn’t say a word. She sat pale and frozen.
“Tell me why,” I said.
“You deserve the whole truth before you marry anyone. That’s all I’ll say.”
Mom tried to speak. Grandma raised a hand, and Mom stopped.
“He’s your grandson,” Dad said. “Not a business deal.”
“Which is exactly why he deserves the truth,” Grandma said.
I took Skyler’s hand.
“Keep your money, Grandma. Keep the cabin. I’m marrying her.”
“Daniel…”
“I never thought the woman who taught me to love people would try to buy my decision.”
Grandma flinched. She said nothing.
Skyler hadn’t spoken once.
That night I was zipping up our bags when Mom appeared in the doorway.
“Daniel. Whatever this is, I’m on your side.”
It seemed to me that she wanted to say something else but changed her mind.
She kissed my forehead and left.
When Skyler came out of the bathroom, I said, “We’re leaving first thing in the morning. I don’t need the money. I don’t need the cabin.”
She wrapped her arms around me and held on tight.
“Are you sure you won’t regret this?”
She started crying.
Stress, I figured. It had been a brutal day.
I woke up alone.
Her side of the bed was cold. Her suitcase was gone.
Her engagement ring sat on the pillow.
I called her. Straight to voicemail.
An hour later, my phone buzzed.
I’m sorry. You deserve someone who can give you everything you want. Please don’t look for me.
I read it five times.
Everything I want? I had just given up the cabin for her. What else was there?
I shoved the ring into my pocket and went to find Grandma.
She was in the kitchen.
“What did you say to her?”
“Nothing. We haven’t spoken since the living room.” Her voice shook. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
Her eyes were wet. “No.”
“Then tell me how you know her.”
“I can’t. Whatever I know about her isn’t mine to share.”
“But you can use it to wreck our engagement?”
She had no answer.
“I don’t want to see you again,” I said.
I drove back to New York that day.
Skyler’s apartment was empty. Her phone stayed off.
I called her friend Madison, who was as scared as I was. Then I called everyone else I could think of.
By evening, Madison called back.
“Someone saw her at St. Luke’s,” she said. “The hospital.”
My blood ran cold.
A hospital. Something had happened to her.
I ran out without my coat.
“I’m looking for my fiancée,” I told the woman at the front desk. My hands were shaking. “Please. I think something happened to her.”
She typed something and shook her head.
“She was seen here. I know she was. She’s about five-six,” I said. “Brown curls. She laughs at her own jokes before she finishes them. She always has a hair tie around her wrist.”
The woman stopped typing.
“Wait.” She tilted her head. “Curls? Green jacket?”
My heart jumped. “Yes. That’s her.”
A slow smile spread across her face.
“Oh, you mean Skyler. She isn’t a patient. She’s one of our volunteers.”
I froze.
“She comes every week to the children’s ward. Reads to the kids. Plays games.” She smiled wider. “They adore her.”
I followed her directions in a daze.
Through the glass of the playroom, I saw Skyler cross-legged on the floor. A little girl in a yellow gown was handing her a puzzle piece.
Skyler laughed.
I had never seen her look so peaceful.
Then she looked up.
The smile died on her face.
The little girl followed her gaze and tugged her sleeve.
I stopped breathing.
She talked about me to these kids?
“Mia, finish the puzzle,” Skyler said softly. She stepped into the corridor and shut the door behind her.
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought something happened to you.”
“I told you not to look for me.”
“You left your ring on a pillow.”
She looked away.
“No more riddles, Sky. Why did you run? And what does my grandmother know?”
She said nothing for a long time.
Then she looked back through the glass.
“There’s something I should have told you the night we met.”
We sat on a bench in the hallway.
“A few years ago, I had a major operation,” she said. “The doctors warned me it might affect my fertility. They just couldn’t say for sure.”
I stayed quiet.
“I had a boyfriend. He lasted three weeks.” She stared at her hands. “When I told him how bad it might be, he said…”
She stopped.
“‘Why would I want a defective woman?'”
I felt sick.
“I waited years for the final results,” she said. “And the night of Dan’s party, the hospital called. Right in the middle of the party.”
“Skyler…”
“I can’t have children. Not naturally.”
Suddenly everything made sense. The empty party. The tears.
“Your mom’s palm thing almost killed me,” Skyler said, laughing and crying at once. “I know it’s superstition. But it felt like she was reading my file.”
No matter what unverified nonsense I considered my mother’s hobby to be… she failed to see a “children’s line” on my fiancée’s hand!
“Is that why the children’s ward?” I asked quietly.
“It’s the one place I don’t feel like I’m missing something.”
My chest ached.
“And you’d just met me,” I said.
“Ten minutes before the call. Great timing, right?” She wiped her face. “I wanted a chance anyway. Then every time I tried to tell you, I heard his voice.”
“And my grandmother?”
“She was one of my doctors. She recognized me.” Skyler swallowed. “She couldn’t tell you. Doctor-patient confidentiality. That’s what I meant in the kitchen.”
“Because you were about to lose your family, your inheritance, even the cabin, for something you didn’t know.” Her voice dropped. “I couldn’t let you.”
“Your text said I deserve everything I want.”
“You do.”
“I told you what I want. At that table. And you smiled like it hurt.” I shook my head. “You decided what I want for me. Without asking.”
She flinched.
“You should have let me decide for myself.”
“I was afraid of losing you.”
Her face crumpled.
“We can adopt,” I said. “If we both want that.”
I could have lied. I could have promised forever.
“I can’t promise what our lives will look like in twenty years,” I said. “But I know I want you in mine.”
I pulled her ring out of my pocket.
She stared at it. Then at me.
She held out her hand.
The next day we flew to Colorado.
Grandma opened the door before we could knock.
“Daniel.”
“She told me everything,” I said. “And I’m still marrying her.”
Grandma looked at Skyler, then at me.
“I was scared for you, Daniel,” she admitted. “I thought you deserved to know the truth before marrying her. But I had no right to force it out of her.”
Skyler took her hand.
“You were right that I needed to tell him. Just not like that.”
Grandma nodded, tears filling her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Skyler. To both of you.” She turned to me. “And Daniel, I never actually took you out of the will. I was bluffing.”
“I don’t care about the inheritance, Grandma,” I said. “I just want you at our wedding.”
She stared at me.
“You still want me there?”
“Front row.”
Grandma pulled us both into a hug.
And for the first time in weeks, everything felt right again.
