Chapter 2 - The Question He Asked in Front of the Kids
Grant held my eyes, and then he said it low, almost calm.
"Are you sure it's mine?"
Bianca's camera stopped clicking.
My daughters went quiet behind me.
I couldn't get a single word out. I just looked at him.
"Grant—" I finally said.
"I'm asking you straight." His voice didn't rise. That was somehow worse. "Are you a hundred percent sure?"
My knees actually went soft under me. Nine years. Three kids. A mortgage, a life, a whole history. And he was standing on our own lawn, in front of our children, asking me that like he was asking about the weather.
"How can you even say that to me?" I whispered.
He didn't answer. He folded the onesie back into the box, set the lid on top, and placed it on the patio table beside him. Gently. Like it was something that had never mattered.
Our oldest — she'd turned eight the month before — slipped up next to me and grabbed a fistful of my dress.
"Mommy, why is Daddy mad?"
I didn't have anything to tell her.
Then Grant's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, looked at the screen, and something moved across his face. Not guilt. Not embarrassment.
Relief.
He turned his back — on Bianca, on the girls, on me — and walked toward the fence with the phone against his ear, talking too quietly for me to catch a word.
I stood there in my pink dress with my hands shaking, watching my husband's shoulders while our daughters watched me.
May you like
When he came back, his whole face had changed. Something had settled in it. Decided.
And the next thing he said was worse than the first.
