Chapter 3: She Was Never Supposed to Find Out
I spun around.
A woman stood at the bottom of the basement stairs.
She looked to be in her mid-forties, thin, with dark circles beneath her eyes and a coat that was soaked through, the same as mine.
She held her hands out in front of her, palms open.
"Don't scream," she said quietly.
"Please.
I'm the one who called you."
My back pressed against the wall of photographs.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Diane." She took one slow step forward.
"I was married to your husband before you were."
The word landed somewhere in my chest and didn't move.
"That's not possible," I said.
"He told me he'd never been married."
"He tells everyone that." She glanced at the wall behind me.
"How far back do those photos go?"
I turned without meaning to.
My eyes found the earliest ones in the bottom left corner.
A younger version of me, maybe twenty-three, standing outside my first apartment in a city I had left nearly a decade ago.
"At least ten years," I said.
Diane nodded slowly.
"Then you've known him longer than you think.
You just didn't know he was there."
My legs wanted to give out.
I locked my knees and stayed standing.
"Why?
Why would he—"
"Because you were chosen." She said it the way someone says a thing they have rehearsed many times.
Flat.
Certain.
Exhausted.
"His mother chose you.
Long before he introduced himself to you.
Long before your first date.
Long before any of it."
I looked at the photographs again.
A photo of me at a grocery store.
A photo of me at a bus stop.
A photo of me laughing at something outside a restaurant, completely unaware.
"His mother," I repeated.
"She runs everything.
Always has." Diane moved to the small folding table in the corner of the basement.
A manila envelope sat on top of it.
She picked it up and held it out toward me.
"This is why I came tonight.
I've been trying to get into this basement for two years.
Tonight was the first time she left it unlocked."
I didn't take the envelope yet.
"What's in it?"
"Documents.
Financial records.
A marriage certificate with my name on it.
And a copy of your marriage certificate." She paused.
"With a problem in it."
"What kind of problem?"
Diane set the envelope on the table and stepped back, giving me space to reach it myself.
"The kind that means your marriage may never have been legal."
I crossed the basement and picked up the envelope.
My hands were still shaking as I lifted the flap.
Inside was a marriage certificate.
The groom's name was my husband's.
The bride's name was Diane Calloway.
The date was eleven years ago.
There was no divorce decree attached.
I flipped through every page twice.
"He never divorced you," I said.
"No," Diane said.
"He didn't."
I set the papers down on the table.
I pressed both palms flat against the surface and breathed.
Behind me, from upstairs, I heard the heavy creak of footsteps crossing the floor.
Then my husband's voice came through the ceiling, low and slow.
May you like
"Mother.
Her car is still outside."
