My Husband’s Other Wife Was My Maid of Honor Chapter 08

My Husband’s Other Wife Was My Maid of Honor Chapter 08 – Sunday Dinner

had one thing left to do before Saturday, and it was the one I dreaded most.

Diane Whitaker has never liked me. In eleven years she has never once called me by name in a text, I’m “you two” or “the kids.” She sends Grant birthday cards with cash in them like he’s fourteen. She kept his childhood

bedroom intact until 2019.

I drove out to her house on Thursday with a coffee cake, because I am my grandmother’s granddaughter and I do not show up empty-handed even for an ambush.

She let me in, surprised. Made tea. Talked about her hip.

Then I set the photograph on her kitchen table. The beach one. Cream dress, flower crown, my husband in

linen.

Diane looked at it.

She did not gasp. She did not ask what it was. She did not say who is that woman.

She reached over, turned it face down, and said:

“So he finally told you.”

I couldn’t get air.

“How long have you known?”

“I’ve met Poppy fourteen times,” she said, and she said it proudly, and that’s the part that comes back to me at three in the morning. “She calls me Nana.”

–

“She’s three,” I said. “So since the beginning. You sat at my table on Christmas. You gave me a fertility

bracelet-”

“Nora.” She folded her hands. “You couldn’t give him children.”

The kitchen went very quiet. The refrigerator hummed.

“I lost three babies,” I said.

“And a man has a right to a family.” Her chin lifted. “He didn’t want to embarrass you. He wanted you to keep your dignity. Do you know what it cost him, splitting himself in half for six years to protect your feelings?”

I stood up so fast the chair went over backward.

She flinched, finally, and I liked it.

He married her,” I said.

Diane blinked. “What?”.

“Fourteen months ago. Legally. In South Carolina. While married to me.” I picked up my purse. “Ask him what that’s called, Diane. Ask him what happens to a man’s law-firm partnership when it turns out he committed a felony, forged his wife’s signature on a deed, and stole four hundred thousand dollars of her inheritance.”

Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.

“He’ll be arraigned in the county where the property is,” I said. “You should probably come. You’ve never

missed anything else.”

I left the coffee cake. I’m not sure why. Maybe so she’d have to look at it.

I got in my car and cried in her driveway for ninety seconds with my forehead on the wheel, and then I stopped, because I had a dress to pick up.

That night, Grant was in a good mood. The house closing had been “delayed by paperwork,” but his bonus posted, and he was going to make partner in forty-eight hours, and he came up behind me in the kitchen and put his arms around my waist.

“Big weekend,” he said into my hair.

“Big weekend.”

“Hey.” He turned me around. He had that look, the earnest one, the one that used to undo me. “I know this year’s been hard. I know I’ve been gone a lot. It’s all about to change, Nor. I promise. After Saturday

everything’s different.”

“I believe you,” I said.

He smiled. God, he has a beautiful smile.

Upstairs, in the lining of my winter coat, was a sealed envelope from Renata with copies of everything, addressed to the managing partner of Halvorsen & Bright. In my phone were two saved contacts: a detective in the Ridgefield County Sheriff’s financial crimes unit, and a reporter from the county paper who had already

asked me twice for comment.

And in my closet was a red dress.

He was right. Everything was about to be different.