Chapter 3: What That Name Opened Up
I turned around slowly.
"What did you just say?"
Grant's jaw tightened.
He looked like a man who had just realized he'd said the wrong thing out loud and was now calculating whether he could take it back.
He couldn't.
"Nothing.
I just meant—"
"You said Diane."
He set his hand flat on the counter.
"I said it wrong.
I meant Mom."
"Your mother's name is Carol."
The silence in the kitchen was the kind that has weight to it.
The kind you can feel pressing against your chest.
"Grant.
Why did you say Diane?"
He looked toward the window.
Not at me.
"It slipped out."
"Names don't just slip out."
"Sometimes they do."
I put the spoon down again.
This time I didn't pick it back up.
Diane was the name of a woman Grant had worked with three years ago.
A woman I had met exactly once, at his company's holiday party, who had laughed too easily at everything he said and touched his arm when she did it.
A woman I had mentioned, once, quietly, on the drive home.
A woman Grant had told me I was imagining things about.
"Is Diane coming on Saturday?"
"What?
No."
"Then why is her name in your mouth right now?"
"It isn't.
I misspoke."
"You misspoke your coworker's name instead of your own mother's."
"She's not my coworker anymore.
She left the company."
The room tilted slightly.
Not because of what he said.
Because of how fast he said it.
The way the detail was already there, ready, like he'd been keeping it somewhere accessible.
"How long ago?"
"I don't know.
A few months."
"And you know this because?"
He finally looked at me.
"Because people talk at work.
It's not a secret."
"I didn't know."
"Because it's not important."
I studied his face.
Fourteen years of that face.
I knew when he was tired.
I knew when he was stressed.
I knew when he was lying by the way he went very still and very reasonable at the same time.
He was very still right now.
And very reasonable.
"Grant, I'm going to ask you something, and I need you to answer me honestly."
"I'm always honest with you."
"Is there something going on with Diane?"
"No."
One word.
No pause.
No flinch.
And yet.
"Then why did her name come out of your mouth when you were asking me to cook for your mother?"
He pushed off the counter and walked toward the hallway.
"I don't know.
I'm tired.
I made a mistake.
Can we please not turn this into a whole thing?"
"A whole thing."
"You know what I mean."
"I'm not sure I do."
He stopped in the doorway.
His back was to me.
"I'm going to check on the laundry."
He walked out.
I stood in the kitchen with the stove still on and the spoon on the counter and the smell of dinner filling the room like nothing had happened.
I turned the burner down.
Then I picked up my phone and opened his work calendar.
He shared it with me two years ago for scheduling purposes.
I'd never looked at it for any other reason.
I looked now.
Three weeks ago.
A lunch.
Blocked out for ninety minutes.
No title.
No location.
Just a gray bar where the details should have been.
Grant never blocked out lunches.
He ate at his desk.
He'd told me that a hundred times.
I set the phone face-down on the counter.
Dinner finished cooking.
I plated it.
I called him down.
He came back looking normal.
Calm.
He sat at the table and talked about a project at work and asked if I wanted to watch something after dinner.
I said sure.
I smiled when it was appropriate.
May you like
And the whole time, one thought sat in the back of my mind like a stone at the bottom of a glass.
He knew her name was Diane without me saying it first.
