Chương 1
"""At 7:42 p.m., my mother-in-law asked me to give my chair to the woman carrying my husband’s child.
For three or four seconds, I thought I had misunderstood her.
Elaine stood behind her place at the center of the table, one hand resting beside her untouched wineglass, while thirty relatives and family friends suddenly found reasons to study their plates.
Beside Evan stood a woman I had never met.
She looked younger than me, though not by much, with damp blond hair tucked behind one ear and a dark green dress stretched gently over a pregnancy she was no longer able to hide.
One of her hands supported the underside of her stomach.
The other clutched a small silver purse so tightly that the clasp pressed white marks into her fingers.
Then Evan looked at me and said, “It’s just one seat, Natalie.”
That was when I understood that everyone else had already been given more information about my marriage than I had.
The banquet room at the Hawthorne Hotel smelled of buttered rolls, white lilies, expensive perfume, and rain drying from wool coats.
Outside the tall windows, Boston shone black and silver beneath the November rain.
Inside, every detail looked exactly as Elaine had requested.
Ivory candles burned between low flower arrangements.
Navy napkins had been folded into fans.
A pianist near the bar was playing something soft enough not to interfere with conversation.
At the entrance stood two framed photographs of Elaine, one at twenty-five and one at sixty-five, surrounded by flowers I had ordered after rejecting three arrangements she said looked “funereal.”
I had planned all of it.
I had negotiated the menu, paid the deposit, arranged transportation for Elaine’s older friends, collected photographs for the slideshow, and spent an entire Sunday scanning pictures while Evan complained that the scanner made our dining room look like an office.
I had even remembered that Elaine hated chocolate.
The little cakes waiting in the kitchen were lemon with raspberry filling because she once told me chocolate desserts were what restaurants served when they had no imagination.
Now my husband’s pregnant mistress was standing behind my chair.
“Who is she?” I asked.
My voice sounded ordinary.
That frightened me more than if I had screamed.
Evan rubbed the side of his nose, a habit he had whenever he was about to say something he had rehearsed.
“Natalie, can we not do this right here?”
A cousin at the far end of the table shifted his water glass.
Someone’s fork touched china with a tiny metallic click.
The blond woman looked at Evan.
He did not look back at her.
Elaine gave me the expression she had used for eight years whenever she believed I was making something unnecessarily difficult.
“We were going to speak privately after dinner,” she said.
“We?”
Elaine’s mouth tightened.
“This is already uncomfortable enough.”
I looked around the table.
My brother-in-law Matthew was staring at his folded hands.
His wife, Corinne, had gone pale.
Elaine’s sister Judith was watching me with wet, furious eyes, though I could not tell yet who had made her furious.
Nobody asked who the woman was.
Nobody looked confused.
“You all know,” I said.
Corinne closed her eyes.
That was answer enough.
The woman beside Evan whispered, “I told you this was a bad idea.”
Her voice was low and rough around the edges.
Evan finally turned toward her.
“Please, Marissa.”
So she had a name.
I stood.
For one ridiculous instant, Elaine smiled in relief because she thought I was obeying her.
I picked up my purse from the back of the chair.
“Thank you,” Elaine said.
I almost laughed.
Instead I looked at Marissa.
“How far along are you?”
“Natalie,” Evan warned.
Marissa swallowed.
“Twenty-four weeks.”
Twenty-four weeks.
I did the arithmetic without meaning to.
Late May.
In late May, Evan and I had been in Cape Cod for our anniversary.
He had bought grocery-store tulips because the florist near the rental cottage was closed, and we had eaten lobster rolls on the porch while arguing about whether we should finally start trying for a baby.
I had said I was scared of waiting much longer.
He had taken my hand across the table.
“We have time,” he had told me.
Marissa’s child had already existed.
Something inside me became very quiet.
“How long have you been together?”
Evan stepped forward.
“We are not doing an interrogation in front of my family.”
“Your family already knows.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“No, I know.”
I looked at Elaine.
“When did you find out?”
She drew herself straighter.
“This afternoon.”
Judith made a small sound.
Elaine shot her a glance.
I caught it.
“When?” I asked Judith.
Elaine said, “Natalie.”
Judith ignored her.
“Three weeks ago.”
The silence changed.
Until then, I had been standing inside a betrayal that belonged to my husband.
Now the walls moved outward.
Elaine stared at her sister.
“Really, Judith.”
“Oh, don’t ‘really, Judith’ me.”
Judith pushed her chair back.
“You said he was going to tell her.”
“I believed he would.”
“You invited that girl here.”
“I invited Marissa because this is my birthday and I was trying to prevent an ugly scene.”
Judith stared at her.
“You invited your son’s pregnant girlfriend to dinner with his wife to prevent an ugly scene?”
“Please lower your voice.”
“Why?”
Elaine’s face hardened.
“Because some of us still understand dignity.”
The absurdity of that sentence nearly knocked the air out of me.
I had heard Elaine say variations of it for years.
Family is about grace.
Dignity costs nothing.
Private problems belong in private rooms.
I had once admired her composure.
At that moment, it looked less like strength than housekeeping.
Anything unpleasant could be swept somewhere guests would not see it.
Marissa stepped away from my chair.
“I’m leaving.”
Evan caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
She pulled free immediately.
“Don’t touch me right now.”
May you like
Several people looked away.
For the first time, I noticed that she was frightened too.
