“So you could do what, exactly?” I blurt out, not meaning to sound quite as accusatorial as I do. At least not on this particular topic.
Nolan squints at me. “Um. So I could get a little break, maybe?” His voice is calm, but laced with bitterness. “You know, Meredith…I’ve been a single parent for two weeks here….”
“First of all,” I say, crossing my arms, the animosity building. “It’s been eleven days—not two weeks. Second of all, I’d be more than happy to take her for the next eleven days. Starting now. Tell your parents we won’t be needing them.”
“Yeah, we do need them, actually. We need to talk. And my parents are going to take Harper while we do,” he says with rare and absolute authority.
I stare at him a beat, then shrug. “Fine,” I say, letting him win this one, thinking that we might as well go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off our sham marriage. “But I’m putting her to bed tonight.”
A short time later, I get in the shower to avoid seeing Nolan’s parents, taking my time drying my hair, dressing, putting on makeup. Part of me is stalling, but part of me is going through my usual confidence-building ritual before I walk into any adversarial scenario. One thing’s for sure—I am not primping for my husband, and I certainly don’t anticipate Nolan’s reaction, which is to give me a conspicuous once-over when I walk into the family room.
“You look pretty,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, involuntarily softened by the compliment, though the effect lasts only a few seconds. “So Harper’s gone?” I confirm.
“Yeah. They just left,” he says. “So did you want to go out? Get something to eat, maybe?”
I narrow my eyes, shake my head, and tell him no, I’m not hungry. I hope my implication is clear—how could you think about food right now?
“Okay. Just asking,” he says. “You typically don’t dress like that around the house….”
I wonder if this is a veiled criticism, but I focus on the bigger picture. “We can talk right here,” I say, feeling queasy as I sit on the far end of the sofa.
“Okay,” he says, staring at me expectantly.
“You wanted to talk. So you go first,” I say, ready to hear him out, listen to any and all of his convoluted explanations or attempts to justify a fifteen-year secret.
He nods and takes a deep breath, surprising me with his first words. “I know Josie told you everything…and I just want to say that I was wrong.”
He stops, waits for me to respond. When I say nothing, he continues, “I was one hundred percent wrong. I should never have kept this from you and your parents. It was as close as you can get to an actual lie without lying.”
“It was a lie,” I say, then literally bite my tongue to keep from unleashing so much more.
“Okay. You’re right,” he says, nodding, further disarming me. “It was a lie. And it was wrong. And I’m so sorry.”
I anticipate the but before his lips form the word. “But I swear, Meredith. I didn’t cover that up for my sake.” His eyes are big, round, and filled with grief.
“Who did you lie for, then?” I ask him.
“In the beginning?” he says, dropping his voice. “Mostly Josie…”
The answer is a surprising slash to my heart. “You’re not married to Josie,” I say, thinking that I could probably get past the cover-up for the first few years, but not once he and I started dating. After that, his loyalty to me should have trumped all else.
“I know that,” he says.
I hesitate, then ask him something I’ve always, deep down, wondered. “Do you wish you were? Married to Josie?”
“What?” he says, looking genuinely horrified. “Don’t be ridiculous, Meredith. Of course I don’t want to be married to your sister. Jesus.”
“Are you sure?” I say, unable to halt my tangent. “You never liked her? Not even in the beginning? You always seemed to have a crush on her…or at least she did on you….”
He hesitates just long enough for my stomach to turn. “Okay. Look,” he begins. “A long time ago…I thought she was hot….”
“When?” I demand.
“When we were in high school and college…early on.”
“What about on that night?” I ask, although I’m not sure why this matters.
“Yeah. On that night, too,” he says. “Josie’s a pretty girl. Very pretty. But so what? There are lots of pretty girls.”
“But you never liked her romantically?” I say.
“No. Absolutely not. I never liked her like that. C’mon, Mere. Where is all this coming from?”
“You lied to me for fifteen years, Nolan. And now you tell me you did it for Josie’s sake. What am I supposed to think? How do you think that makes me feel?”
He runs his hands through his hair and says, “Shitty. I get that. But it wasn’t just for her sake. It was for your mom and dad, too…for your whole family. For you, Meredith.”