Chapter 4
We still went to Ryan and Megan's on Saturday night.
We had agreed to the dinner weeks earlier, and canceling meant explaining a tension I still couldn't name.
Grant had not brought it up again.
Neither had I.
I had picked up the cleaned ring and put it back in my jewelry box. The pregnancy test was still in the drawer beside the dining table.
The news I had planned to give Grant had been postponed for a few more days.
After dinner, Ryan came back from the kitchen with a bottle of wine and set a stack of cards on the coffee table.
"Don't leave yet. One round."
It was one of those party games designed to make friends expose themselves.
The first few questions were harmless, and people laughed through them.
Grant sat beside me with half a glass of whiskey.
Camille was near the window.
When Megan drew the next card, she read it once.
"What's the worst thing you've ever hidden from your partner?"
Ryan grinned.
"Finally. A good one."
A few people offered harmless confessions.
Then it was Grant's turn.
He looked down and turned his glass once between his fingers.
"Pass."
Ryan raised an eyebrow.
"You didn't let anyone else pass."
Grant gave a small smile.
"I've decided to become generous."
A few people laughed.
Camille lifted her wineglass, paused for the briefest moment, then took a drink.
I noticed.
But Grant bothered me more.
He did not follow the joke with another one.
"Why are you passing?"
I asked.
"Audrey, it's just a game."
Megan reached for the next card.
"We can do another one."
Grant did not tell her to go ahead.
Ryan stopped teasing him.
The conversation had been easy a moment earlier. Now no one seemed quite sure how to move it forward.
I turned toward Grant.
"Are you actually hiding something from me?"
His grip loosened around the glass.
A few seconds later, he set it on the coffee table.
"One thing."
My hand went still against my knee.
"What?"
Grant looked at me.
I remembered the question he had dodged at our dining table.
Now he took his time again.
"It happened before we got married."
I held his gaze.
"When?"
Grant lowered his eyes and took a breath.
"The night before the wedding."
For a second, I did not understand.
"What?"
He looked up again.
"I slept with someone."
I stayed completely still.
The sentence was simple, but it seemed to take several seconds to reach me.
"What did you say?"
Grant swallowed.
"I slept with someone the night before our wedding."
I stared at him.
"Our wedding?"
"Yes."
The next day, he had put on a suit, stood in front of me, and taken my hand.
I had known nothing.
I tried to remember whether anything about him had seemed different that day.
All I could remember was being nervous.
The way he smiled when he saw me coming toward him.
The certainty I had felt that all those years together were becoming something permanent.
Now there was another piece sitting inside that memory. One I had never been given.
I looked around the table.
No one spoke.
No one asked Grant if he was joking.
That bothered me more than any attempt at comfort could have.
I turned back to him.
"Who?"
Grant looked at me.
He did not answer.
I waited.