I hid the box in my nightstand like I was some teenager planning a proposal. But Lauren was weird that night. She constantly checked her hair in the hallway mirror and changed tops twice.
She was also pacing the living room like she was waiting for bad news.
“Yeah. Just tired,” she said quickly.
“Long week.” She walked over, kissed my cheek, and went to shower. Her phone buzzed on the dining table as she disappeared down the hall.
Normally, I don’t touch her phone. We’re not those people.
But the sound was almost identical to mine, and my hands were still covered in olive oil from the pan. I grabbed a towel, reached for what I thought was my phone, and the screen lit up.
It wasn’t my lock screen. It was hers.
And right there at the top was a notification from her friend Amanda. I didn’t mean to read it. I really didn’t.
But my eyes caught the preview before my brain could look away.
“Thank you for the invitation, babe! I’ll see you tomorrow at 7. Crescent Hall, right?
My first thought was stupidly hopeful. “Maybe she’d changed her mind and planned something small with a few girlfriends,” I wondered.
Then it landed: invite-only party tomorrow at seven for her birthday, at a nice venue I’d never heard about. And I, her husband of 13 years, knew nothing.
I stood there with a wooden spoon in my hand while the salmon I was making hissed angrily behind me. My heart felt like it had dropped into the sink.
She hadn’t wanted “no celebration.” She’d wanted no celebration with me.
I locked her phone and set it down exactly where it had been. When she came back in pajamas, hair damp, asking, “Smells great, is that lemon?” I smiled and joked about overcooking the fish. Inside, I was replaying that message on a loop.
I didn’t sleep much that night.
She dozed off with her back to me, breathing slowly and evenly. I lay there staring at the ceiling fan, counting the rotations, wondering what could possibly be happening that she needed an entire secret party for.
But Lauren has never been like that. Paranoid as I was, I kept thinking there had to be another explanation, just none I was prepared to hear.
Her actual birthday fell on a Friday. That morning, Caleb and I still made her breakfast.
She hugged us, thanked us, and kept saying, “You guys didn’t have to do all this,” like we’d brought her a car, not food.
Around four in the afternoon, she found me in the home office, pretending to work while I was actually staring at an empty spreadsheet. She leaned on the doorframe, twisting her wedding ring the way she does when she’s nervous.
“Hey,” she said. “So… I know it’s my birthday, but I’ve gotta go to my mom’s tonight.Continue reading…
