My Marriage Was Their Bet novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Tenth Dress
On their tenth anniversary Bancroft brings home a club girl and orders Daphne to give her the wedding dress. Daphne does it, drops her ring in his wine and leaves, then hears his friends call in the bet they made on her, and sees Samson waiting at the curb, not surprised.
On our tenth anniversary, my husband walked a stranger into our dining room and told me to give her my wedding dress.
Twelve of his friends and their wives were already seated, with the good wine open.
Bancroft had done this nine times before.
Every October, he brought home a new woman, and every October he told me to train her.
I taught them which fork to use and what to say to his friends' wives.
None of them lasted past the spring.
After each one left, he cried in the kitchen and promised me she was the last.
I believed him nine times.
This year's woman wore a red dress that was too short for the weather and a paper wristband from a club.
She was maybe twenty-three, with bleached hair and eyeliner she had put on in a hurry.
"This is Kitty," Bancroft said, with his hand on her back. "Kitty, say hi to my wife."
"Hi," Kitty said. She would not look at me.
Bancroft's friends smiled into their glasses.
Their wives watched me, waiting to see whether I would cry.
Samson MacKinnon stood in the front hall with Kitty's coat.
He was Bancroft's partner and oldest friend, and he did this every year.
He took the new woman's coat from the closet himself and talked to her alone in the hall for five minutes.
Then he left before dessert, before anyone could ask why.
I had always assumed he was warning them off.
I had never asked.
Tonight Samson handed Kitty back her coat, looked at me once, and walked out.
I did not ask that either.
"She doesn't have a gown," Bancroft said to the table, loud and cheerful.
"Daphne, give her your wedding dress. And the diamond set you wore last year."
Somebody laughed.
"Her own shoes will do," Bancroft said, and more people laughed.
I looked at the twelve faces around my own table.
Not one of them looked away.
"Okay," I said.
Bancroft grinned and picked up his wine.
I took Kitty by the elbow and led her upstairs.
In my closet, behind the winter coats, the dress hung in its garment bag where it had hung for ten years.
"You don't have to do this," Kitty said quietly.
It was the first thing anyone had said to me in nine years that sounded like it came from my side.
"I know," I said.
"I didn't know about the dress. He told me it was a dinner. He said you'd be nice."
"I am nice," I said. "Hold your arms up."
I zipped her into my wedding dress.
It was too long on her.
I pinned the hem with the pins from my sewing drawer.
I took the diamond necklace and the earrings out of the safe and put them on her myself, because her hands were shaking.
Then I looked at my own face in the mirror, and I did not recognize the woman who had stayed.
We walked down the stairs together.
Bancroft's friends clapped.
Bancroft pulled out the chair next to his for Kitty and kissed my cheek.
"Good girl," he said into my ear. "See? That wasn't so hard."
I took off my wedding ring.
It slid off easily after ten years.
I held it over his wine glass and let go.
It hit the bottom with a small, clear sound.
The table went quiet.
"Daph," Bancroft said. "Sit down."
"No," I said.
"You're making a scene."
"Yes," I said. "I know. I'm leaving."
I picked up my purse from the sideboard and walked into the hall.
Nobody stopped me.
Bancroft laughed behind me, and then the rest of them did.
I stopped at the front door with my hand on the cold brass.
The dining room window was open a few inches, and I could hear everything.
"Ten years tonight," one of his friends said. "At midnight, we all pay up."
"Pay up?" Bancroft said. "Please. She's standing in the hall in her good shoes. By midnight she'll be in the kitchen washing your glasses."
"She took her ring off."
"She'll put it back on. Nobody leaves me." Bancroft's chair scraped. "We made a bet on it at our wedding. Ask anyone at this table."
Around the table, in the dark, every voice laughed at once.
I stood very still.
My marriage had been a bet.
Ten years of it, and twelve people had known.
I opened the front door.
I walked down the long driveway in the October cold, past Bancroft's cars, past the gate.
At the curb, a black car sat with its engine running and its headlights off.
The driver's window was down.
Samson looked up at me from the seat.
He had left at the first course, like he did every year.
He did not ask what had happened.
He did not look surprised at all.
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