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The author is very close with her stepmom, who both hosted Belle’s wedding at her home in Water Mill, N.Y., and supported her through her divorce.
After Henry admitted he’d been having an affair, Belle wrote in Strangers“I know I called my stepmother, Susan, and told her what had happened. She yelped in shock.”
In the ensuing days, Susan “called me several times a day,” Belle recalled. “We were very close, bonded from the moment she entered my life in 1972. She wept with me, both of us quiet as we cried. She was the only person who tried to reach [Henry].”
Susan emailed Henry, pleading with him to end the marriage “kindly, honorably,” Belle wrote. “He was furious.”
