Chapter 4: Terms

Nathaniel did not wait for the church to settle.

He looked once at Tiffany in the second pew, and he said, in the same quiet voice, "Then I wish the three of you luck."

Then he took my hand and walked me down the aisle past three hundred stunned faces.

Behind us, Margaret began shouting my name.

Preston was shouting something about his baby.

Jo caught my eye from the side aisle and held up her phone with both thumbs raised.

Outside, the June sun was blinding.

Nathaniel's car waited at the curb, a black sedan with a driver's door he opened himself.

"Go with your father," I said to Jo, over the noise. "Take him home. Tell him I'll call."

"You'd better," Jo said. She hugged me hard around the lace. "I want every detail, Mrs. Aldridge."

I got into the passenger seat.

The sedan pulled away from St. Brendan's with the bells still ringing.

We drove along the coast road for ten minutes without speaking.

Nathaniel drove with one hand low on the wheel.

The water on my side of the car was bright blue.

"You haven't asked me anything," I said at last.

"You've had a long day."

"I married you in front of three hundred people. I'm allowed to ask you something."

"Ask."

"Did you know about the baby?"

His eyes stayed on the road.

"No," he said. "I knew about Tiffany."

"For how long?"

"Three weeks," he said. "Which is why I wrote to you."

The answer sat between us.

I turned my face to the window and did not push.

His house stood at the end of Ocean Drive, behind a stone wall, a long gray building of granite and glass.

Inside it was cool and spare.

A housekeeper took my veil without a word and disappeared.

Nathaniel led me into a study full of books and put a single sheet of paper on the desk.

"Read this before I say anything else."

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