Chapter 4

Grant followed me to the elevators.

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

The doors had not arrived. I watched the numbers descend, one floor at a time.

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

"We were just talking."

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

He accused me of being too sensitive.

I asked him whether he had told Taryn about my miscarriage.

For one second, his face changed.

Then he looked directly at me and said, "No."

I knew he was lying.

Months earlier, at company family day, Taryn had approached me beside the refreshment table.

"Are you sleeping any better these days?" she asked.

My smile froze.

Only three people knew that I woke from nightmares after losing the baby. My mother, my doctor, and Grant.

Grant changed the subject. On the drive home, he claimed Taryn must have heard that I was busy and assumed I had trouble sleeping.

When I asked again, he lost his temper.

"Why do you always latch onto one sentence? You made everything awkward in front of my coworkers."

The worst thing that had ever happened to me had become a conversation starter another woman could use to seem close to me.

Somehow, my husband believed he was the one I had humiliated.

Now, outside the elevator, he lied again.

The doors opened.

I stepped inside without exposing him.

I no longer needed a confession. The reflexive lie told me enough.

The folder was still pressed against my chest.

Grant finally noticed the dark blue paper inside it.

"What's that?"

"Nothing."

The doors closed between us.

I canceled his birthday reservation from the lobby. Then I drove home with his gift on the passenger seat and cried at every red light.

At home, I placed the fountain pen beside two entrees and the soup I had made that morning.

Some small, humiliating part of me still hoped he would come home early enough to save the night.

At eleven, I saw a photo from his team celebration.

Taryn held a cake while Grant leaned toward her to blow out the candles. The caption called them the office power couple.

When the front door opened, I was already in bed.

I heard Grant unwrap the gift downstairs.

He stood outside our bedroom for several seconds.

I waited for him to enter and apologize.

He walked away.

The next morning, he took the pen to work.

That evening, a message preview from Taryn appeared on the browser Grant had left signed in downstairs.

"Beautiful pen. Who gave it to you?"

Grant's answer sat beneath it.

"Someone at home."

Someone at home.

Not his wife.

I stared at those words until my vision blurred.

He had taken the gift that carried our wedding date into the office, handed another woman the story of it, and removed me from the sentence.

That night, I searched our computer for the folder where I kept our financial records.

Instead, I found screenshots of messages between Grant and Taryn.

One was part of a letter I had sent him after the miscarriage.

I had written more than a thousand words about grief, fear, and the terrible loneliness of hearing my husband say he was not ready to try again.

Grant had cropped out everything that explained my pain.

He sent Taryn only the last paragraphs, the ones where I was angry.

"See?" he had written. "Isn't she being unfair to me?"

Taryn replied, "Laurel just loves you too much. You have it hard too."

My body went cold.

I closed the computer and sat alone in the dark.

That was the night I understood there were three people inside my marriage.

I was the only one who had not been told.