I closed the door. And the house remained silent.
I smiled, standing there in the dark foyer, a small victory. It was the first still moment of the day, and I took it in, surrounded by the familiar smells: a mix of freesia and lemon—what my mother cleaned with—and the night jasmine from the windows my mother always left open, letting in a nice breeze. It was the kind of breeze that you couldn’t find anywhere in Los Angeles. Which made Los Angeles feel a million blessed miles away.
I walked into the kitchen, leaving all of the lights off, running my hand along the wooden countertop and along the farm table. The remnants of dinner—plates, two glasses, and a bottle of wine—were waiting by the sink.
I decided to make myself useful and started gathering up dishes when I saw it through the window. It was next to the hot tub—taking up the patio and the yard. A large tent. Sailcloth white. It was the tent I was getting married under in eight days. Since it was after midnight, did it count as seven days? Los Angeles came screaming back.
Literally. My cell phone rang, piercing the darkness.
I picked up, on reflex, not wanting the phone to wake my sleeping parents, not wanting to scare them.
“Don’t hang up,” he said.
It was Ben. His voice through the phone line shook me.
“Then stop calling.”
“I cannot.”
I loved how Ben spoke. It was an opening statement about who he was: calm, sincere. British. I was a sucker for an accent, which was why I always listed the other qualities first. It was a way to keep my credibility. We had spoken on the phone for over a month before we ever laid eyes on each other. Ben, an architect, had lived in New York at the time. I was a real estate lawyer, my firm working on one of his projects in Los Angeles, a modern office building downtown. That was how we fell in love, on the phone, talking about the least sexy things in the world. Permits. And billing. And then, everything that mattered.
“You need to let me walk you through this, Georgia,” he said. “I’m not saying there is a good explanation. I’m saying it’s not what you think.”
“No, thanks.”
“This is madness. I love you. You know I love you. I’m not involved with Michelle, not since before I knew you. But Maddie . . .”
I hung up the phone.
Hearing the name Maddie was too real. She had a name. Ten hours before this phone call, she hadn’t existed. Now she had a name.
Ten hours before this phone call, I’d been happy. I’d been late, but happy. I ran into Stella’s Bridal Shop in Silver Lake twenty minutes late for my final dress fitting. It was a fitting for my wedding dress, which Stella had made entirely in her five-hundred-square-foot shop: a trumpet dress made with silky white Chantilly lace, draped Spanish tulle, soft sleeves.
I loved the dress—the way it hugged my hips, mermaid-style, the way it softened my shoulders—and I found myself smiling when Stella (after forgiving me for being twenty minutes late) asked me to shimmy across the floor in my satin heels and find my way to the pedestal, so she could do the hem.
I went to the pedestal by the window, striking a bit of a pose. Stella smiled, and egged me on. Put your hands on your hips, she said, enjoying the happy stares we were getting from people walking down the street.
Then I saw my fiancé walking down the street.
Ben was walking down the street with a woman I didn’t know. And not just any woman. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, with long red hair, a stunning smile. A matching version of the woman—redheaded and tiny, four or five years old—was by the woman’s side. But the woman outside the bridal shop window was the one who caught my eye.
I recognized her from somewhere, but it would take me a minute to place the where. Stella would actually place her for me. My fiancé was the side note.
And that wasn’t the biggest problem.
The biggest problem was what happened when I knocked on the window, failing to get Ben’s attention.
I was excited for him to turn around. I was excited to see Ben’s face—his strong jaw and cheekbones, a dimple that made no sense. I figured there was a reasonable explanation for what he was doing there with the woman. We’d spent that morning in bed together, in our home together, eating peach French toast. Laughing, getting naked. We were getting married in eight days. We were madly in love.
But Ben didn’t hear me. He kept walking, toward Sunset Junction. The woman was happily walking by his side, her mini-me by hers.
The woman leaned into him, into my fiancé, putting her hand on the small of his back, like it belonged there. And it jerked me forward, and out onto the street, wearing my un-hemmed wedding dress.
I gripped the lace in my hands, making sure the un-hemmed part didn’t hit the dirty street. Stella ran out into the street after me.
“Ben!” I called his name.
Ben turned around. As did the woman. And her little girl.
And then I knew how I recognized the woman, holding her daughter’s hand, as Stella said her name. Michelle Carter. The famous British actress. On the cover of so many American magazines. Close up she was light and lean, like a leaf. Like a pickle.
Ben looked at me. The woman looked at me. The little girl looked at Ben.
“Daddy,” she said.
Let me stop there.
With what Maddie said.
To Ben.
Let me stop there before Stella bent down and bustled as much of the lace as she could—my eyes holding on the little girl, the beautiful little girl, her eyes holding on mine. People stopping on the street, staring at Michelle, pointing.
Ben was moving toward me, completely panicked. Three words coming out of his mouth, but maybe not the words you’d think. Not: I am sorry. Not: It isn’t true. Not: I can explain.
Just this. As though it was all he could see. And if it was, does that count for anything?
“You look beautiful,” he said.
Ten hours later, I took off my satin heels and headed up the stairs, holding my dress so I wouldn’t slip, moving quickly to the safety of my room.
My phone rang again, vibrating through the house.
“Don’t hang up,” Ben said.
“Didn’t we just do this?”
“You answered, didn’t you? A part of you wants to hear what I have to say.”
He wasn’t wrong. There was a way to turn off the phone. I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t been able to. Part of me wanted Ben to tell me a story that would make this all okay, that would make him familiar again.
I sat down on the staircase, my dress billowing out to the sides.
“You need to understand, I didn’t even know about Maddie until a couple of months ago . . .” he said.
“Your daughter?”
He paused. “Yes. My daughter.”
“How old is she, Ben?”
“Maddie is four and a half.”
He emphasized the half and I knew why. We had been together for five years. The half meant she was conceived before me, before us.
“I obviously wasn’t going to keep this a secret forever, but it’s complicated with Michelle,” he said. “And I wanted to smooth that part of this out before I dragged you into it.”