“Why are you asking like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you are trying to catch me in something.”
I stared at her, half confused and half wounded.
“I asked about your vacation.”
She looked away and rubbed her forehead.
“I am sorry.
I am tired.”
I accepted that explanation because travel can make people strange.
But the strangeness stayed.
She changed her phone password the first night.
I saw her do it while sitting on the couch, thumbs moving fast, shoulders angled away from me.
When a notification came in, she turned the screen down so quickly it almost slipped from her hand.
The next morning, she showered again before breakfast.
Then again after a trip to the grocery store, where she said she only needed ginger tea.
She had never liked ginger tea.
She stepped outside to take calls.
She told me it was Victoria, then Elise, then Victoria again.
But she did not laugh on those calls.
She whispered.
Sometimes she listened more than she spoke.
Once, when I opened the back door to ask if she wanted lunch, she spun around with panic on her face.
“Sorry,” I said.
She pressed the phone against her chest.
“You scared me.”
“I live here.”
She did not smile.
A week after she came back, the nausea began.
At first, she blamed airport food.
Then the resort buffet.
Then stress.
She woke up gagging behind the locked bathroom door.
She pushed away coffee because the smell made her sick.
She cried over a commercial for dog food and then accused me of watching her too closely.
I was watching her closely.
I will not pretend otherwise.
But by then, watching felt like the only honest thing left in our house.
One night, while she slept, I did laundry.
I checked pockets automatically, the way you do when you have ruined enough receipts and lip balms in the washer to learn your lesson.
Something folded fell from her jeans.
It was a receipt from a bar in Jamaica.
The ink was faded, but the resort name was clear.
On the back, written in blue pen, was one name.
Keon.
I stared at it for a long time.
A reasonable man might have woken her.
An angry man might have shouted.
A desperate man might have gone through her phone.
I folded the receipt back up, put it in the pocket, and started the washer.
I needed truth, not noise.
The next few days felt like living inside a lie that had not confessed yet.
Margaret avoided the wedding binder.
She stopped answering questions about final payments.
When my mother called to ask about the bridal shower menu, Margaret let it go to voicemail and said she had a headache.
Then, one evening, she took a bite of chicken and turned pale.
“Take a pregnancy test,” I said.
Her fork clinked against the plate.
