I heard sobbing as I knocked on the door.
My cheating fiancΓ©e's mother, Janice, answered. Tall and brown-haired like her daughter, at 43 she was still stunning despite a few wrinkles here and there. Today, though, her eyes were red-rimmed from crying.
As I handed her the garbage bags holding the last of Sarah's clothes from my closet, I tried to be reassuring, "Janice, please don't be upset. You're a wonderful woman, you had nothing to do with the crap Sarah pulled. I'll be fine."
She shook her head, "It's not about that, Mike, I just found out Aaron is cheating on me. The concierge from the hotel he's at with his mistress just called because the bank declined his credit card. Apparently some hacker got the number and made a bunch of suspicious charges. So now I know he's at a beach resort in Santa Cruz, not a business trip to Seattle." She began sobbing, and I took her in my arms and held her to my chest.
I didn't know if it would help or not, but as a distraction I told her, "Hey, I haven't held you like this since we danced at that New Year's Eve party two years ago." It must have done the trick; she stopped crying, looking up at me with a funny little smile.
"That was nice, wasn't it?"