Chapter 12: The Toast

"Solène," Preston said. "Not like this."

His voice had gone thin, and he didn't look at me.

"Like what?" she said sweetly. "You told me you wanted it done after the weekend. Well, the weekend has come to us."

She set her water glass on the white cloth and put her palm flat against the front of her silk blouse.

"I'm eleven weeks pregnant," she said.

She said it in English, for the room. She said it in French, too, for the people who had missed it.

"Il est de Preston."

It's Preston's.

The banker's wife gasped. Somebody's chair scraped.

At the far end of the table, Eleanor didn't move.

Solène looked at me as she said the rest, and she was almost gentle about it.

"He was going to tell you on Monday," she said. "After your little appointment."

"He thought it would be kinder. You wouldn't make a scene in front of everyone."

"Solène," Preston said again.

"Tell her, darling. She understands everything. She has just proven it."

I looked at my husband.

I waited for him to say it wasn't true.

I waited for the thing I had waited for since Wednesday, in a locked bathroom with a plastic stick in my hand.

He stared at the stain of red wine on the cloth.

"I was going to tell you," he said at last, very low. "After. I swear I was going to tell you properly, Aimée."

"After Nantucket," I said.

His head came up.

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