Chapter 3: The Wine I Brought Back to the Table
I stood in that garage for three full minutes.
I know because I watched the numbers change on the wall clock above the shelves — the one Ryan hung there two summers ago when he decided he was going to start doing his own oil changes.
He never did.
The clock was still there though, ticking.
I made a decision before I went back inside.
I was going to act normal.
I was going to set the wine on the table, refill the glasses, and smile.
I was going to watch Ryan's face and Claire's face and not say a single word about what I had heard.
Because if I was wrong, I would have destroyed something that didn't need destroying.
And if I was right, I needed to know more before I said anything at all.
I walked back in through the kitchen door.
Ryan was at the counter, rinsing a glass.
His grandfather had moved to the living room and was settled into the armchair he always claimed.
Claire was on the couch, legs tucked under her, laughing at something on her phone.
Nobody looked up when I came in.
"Took you a while," Ryan said, not unkindly.
He reached over and took the bottle from me, started working the opener.
"Couldn't find the one I wanted," I said.
He didn't question it.
He poured.
He handed me a glass first, the way he always did, and his fingers brushed mine and he smiled at me, and I smiled back, and I thought: *I don't know what I heard.*
I sat down across from Claire.
She was still looking at her phone.
She had our mother's cheekbones and our father's eyes and she had been my best friend for thirty-four years.
She looked up and caught me watching her.
"What?" she said, grinning.
"Nothing," I said.
"You've got something on your chin."
She grabbed a napkin, checked, found nothing, and threw the napkin at me.
"You're such a liar."
Ryan laughed from the kitchen.
His grandfather said, from the armchair, "You two are exactly like your mother and her sister were."
I looked at him.
He was watching us with that warm, settled expression he got when something pleased him deeply.
Not a guilty expression.
Not the face of a man who had just been discussing my sister's body with my husband.
Something shifted in my chest.
Just slightly.
"Did you know our mother?" Claire asked him, sitting up straighter.
"Saw her at the wedding," he said.
"Reminded me of someone I used to know.
Same laugh."
Claire smiled.
"Everyone says that."
I watched Ryan come back to the table.
He set the bottle down and pulled out his chair and looked at me — just a regular look, the kind that meant nothing and everything when you'd been married long enough — and I thought about the way he'd said *she hasn't told anyone yet, not even Vanessa.*
After dinner, after his grandfather had gone home and Claire had disappeared into the guest room, I sat on the edge of the bed while Ryan brushed his teeth.
I had the question ready.
I had decided I was going to ask it casually, like it had just occurred to me.
He came out of the bathroom, toweling his hands.
"Ryan," I said.
"Is everything okay with Claire?"
He stopped.
Just for a half-second — the kind of pause that wouldn't mean anything to someone who hadn't been listening for it.
"Yeah," he said.
"Why?"
"She just seems a little off lately.
Quieter."
He tossed the towel over the hook on the back of the door.
"She's probably just stressed about the apartment search."
He got into bed.
He reached over and turned off his lamp.
He said, "Night, Van," and rolled onto his side.
I lay there in the dark staring at the ceiling.
He hadn't lied to me.
May you like
But he hadn't told me the truth either.
And the difference between those two things, I was beginning to understand, could be enormous.
