Chapter 4

Maren did not ask what we had been saying.

It was my birthday.

She had booked a restaurant, but I had rushed out that morning and forgotten an important file. That was why she brought the folder to my office herself.

Inside it was the gift she had bought me, a fountain pen I had mentioned years earlier and long since forgotten.

When I caught up with her near the elevators, I saw the corner of dark blue wrapping paper peeking from the folder.

I noticed it, but I did not ask.

I cared more about how much she had overheard and whether she would start another fight at home.

She handed me the folder, nodded once to Blaire, and turned away.

I followed her to the elevators. Her silence irritated me more than anger would have.

"Don't misunderstand. We were only talking about the team chat name from yesterday."

She watched the floor numbers change above the elevator.

"Why do you tell her things that happen between us?"

"We were just talking."

"Does talking require using our private life as material?"

"There aren't supposed to be secrets between married people. Don't you think you're being too sensitive?"

The numbers above us kept counting down.

Maren looked at me.

"When you say married people shouldn't have secrets, do you mean I can't keep anything from you? Or do you mean you're free to tell her everything about me?"

For once, I had no quick answer.

This was not the first time I had shared her private pain with Blaire.

I had told Blaire that Maren had trouble sleeping after the miscarriage and often woke in the middle of the night.

I had told her Maren cried all night after I said I did not want another child yet.

I had even taken a screenshot from a long letter Maren sent me and asked Blaire whether I was really being so terrible.

The original letter was more than a thousand words.

Maren wrote that after losing the baby, she was afraid to turn off the lights. She wrote that when she heard me say I was not ready for children, she wondered whether even her grief had become an inconvenience.

I sent Blaire only the final few paragraphs.

Those were the paragraphs where Maren questioned me and said cruel things after her emotions finally broke.

I erased my absence and preserved her collapse.

Then I asked another woman, "See? Isn't she being unfair to me?"

Blaire always answered gently.

"Maren just loves you too much. You have it hard too."

At a company family day, Blaire once said casually in front of Maren, "Are you sleeping any better these days?"

Maren's smile froze.

I changed the subject at once. I claimed Blaire had probably heard me mention that Maren had been busy.

When we got home, Maren asked why Blaire knew she could not sleep.

I lost my temper. I said Maren always latched onto one sentence and made things difficult for me in front of my coworkers.

That night, Maren said, "The worst thing that ever happened to me became a conversation starter she could use to seem friendly. And somehow, you think you're the one who was humiliated."

The elevator chimed and pulled me back to the present.

The doors were open, but Maren had not stepped inside.

"Did you tell her about my miscarriage too?" she asked.

I could have told the truth.

Instead, I looked into her eyes and said no.

She did not expose the lie. She stepped into the elevator.

Before the doors closed, I saw her holding the folder tightly against her chest.

My birthday dinner never happened.

Maren canceled the reservation and went home alone. When my work was finished, I went downstairs with the project team to celebrate.

Blaire brought out a small last-minute cake. My coworkers teased that my "work wife" should light the candles for her "work husband."

I laughed, blew out the candles, and posed for a photo.

It was eleven when I got home. Maren was already asleep.

The fountain pen sat on the dining table beside two cold entrees and a bowl of soup.

I opened the gift and saw our wedding date engraved inside the cap. For a moment, guilt tightened my chest.

I took the pen to work the next day.

Blaire told me it was beautiful and asked who had given it to me.

I did not say Maren.

I only said, "Someone at home."

I did not know why I blurred the answer.

Maybe I did not want Blaire to think I loved my wife too much.

In the same way, I never wanted Maren to know how much Blaire mattered to me.

I stood between two relationships, hiding a different truth from each side, and called that carefully maintained balance innocence.

I thought I had merely left out Maren's name.

Later, I understood that I had been erasing my wife's existence in front of another woman, one small omission at a time.