Chapter 5: Everything She Never Said to My Face
Ethan's mother, Diane, lived in a pale yellow house at the end of a cul-de-sac with a bird feeder in the front yard and a welcome mat that said HOME SWEET HOME in faded letters.
I had always found the welcome mat quietly ironic.
We drove out on a Tuesday evening, three days after the bachelorette.
Ethan had called ahead.
Diane knew we were coming.
She met us at the door in a cardigan and reading glasses pushed up on her head, the picture of a grandmother from a catalog.
"Come in, come in," she said warmly.
She kissed Ethan on the cheek.
She looked at me and smiled the smile she always used — pleasant, practiced, the kind that reached the corners of her mouth and stopped there.
"Diane," I said.
"Sit down, both of you.
I just made tea."
The living room was tidy and warm.
Family photographs on the shelf — Ethan as a boy, Lauren at various ages, school portraits, holidays.
I scanned them without meaning to.
I was not in any of them.
Five years of marriage, and I was not in a single frame on that shelf.
Ethan noticed me noticing.
He sat forward in his chair.
"Mom, I want to talk about what happened at the bachelorette."
Diane set down the teapot.
"Lauren told me her side."
"I'm sure she did.
I want you to hear mine."
"Ethan, Lauren is getting married in three weeks.
This is a stressful time for her.
She may have said some things—"
"She told my wife that I only married her because I felt sorry for her."
Diane's hands stilled on the tray.
"She said that in front of Lauren's bridesmaids," Ethan continued.
"After deliberately changing the bachelorette location to a pool resort because she knew it would make my wife too uncomfortable to attend."
Diane was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, "Lauren can be thoughtless sometimes.
She doesn't always think before she speaks."
"Mom."
"What do you want me to say, Ethan?"
"I want you to say it was wrong."
Diane picked up her own cup.
"I think everyone is very stressed right now and things got out of hand."
I had been sitting quietly.
I had planned to stay quiet.
But something about the way she said it — the careful neutrality of it, the practiced smoothness — made me put my own cup down.
"Diane," I said.
"Can I ask you something directly?"
She looked at me.
A small pause.
"Of course."
"Have you ever actually wanted me to be part of this family?"
The room went very still.
Diane set her cup down.
She looked at Ethan, then back at me.
When she spoke, her voice was measured and calm, and that calmness was its own kind of answer.
"I want Ethan to be happy," she said.
"That's not what I asked."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"You're very different from what I imagined for him," she said finally.
"Different how?"
She folded her hands in her lap.
"Lauren and Ethan grew up with very little.
I worked two jobs for most of their childhood.
I wanted them to have security.
Stability.
I wanted Ethan to find someone who understood what that kind of life does to a person." She glanced at me.
"You didn't grow up that way."
"No," I said.
"I didn't."
"I'm not saying that's your fault."
"But you held it against me."
She didn't answer.
Which was its own answer.
Ethan's voice was very quiet.
"Mom.
Are you telling me that you and Lauren have been treating her this way because of where she grew up?"
"I'm telling you that family bonds are complicated, and—"
"No." He stood up.
"No, I want a straight answer.
Have you been unkind to my wife?"
Diane looked up at her son.
For the first time since we'd arrived, something shifted in her expression.
Not guilt exactly.
Something older than that.
"I may not have made her feel as welcome as I should have," she said.
It was the most honest thing she had ever said to me.
It was also not enough.
Ethan picked up his jacket from the arm of the chair.
"We're going to go.
But I want you to think about something before Lauren's wedding."
Diane looked at him steadily.
"I've spent my whole life making sure you and Lauren were okay," he said.
"Every problem, every crisis, every time either of you needed something — I was there.
And I did that because I love you.
But I need you to understand that I have a wife.
And she comes first.
Not instead of you.
First."
He looked at the shelf of photographs.
"I'd like to be in a picture on that shelf someday," he said.
"Both of us."
He walked to the door.
I stood up.
I looked at Diane one more time.
She was still seated, hands folded, looking at the middle distance.
"Thank you for the tea," I said.
She nodded once.
In the car, Ethan didn't start the engine right away.
He sat with both hands on the wheel.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I didn't know how much of it was her too."
"I wasn't sure you'd believe me if I told you."
He turned to look at me.
"I would have believed you."
I wanted to say I know.
But the truth was more complicated than that, and we both understood it.
He started the car.
My phone buzzed on the way home.
A text from an unknown number.
*You should know that Lauren has been telling people you're the reason Ethan pulled the wedding funding.
She's been saying it for days.
I thought you deserved to hear it from someone.*
I stared at the message.
"Ethan," I said.
He glanced over.
I held up the phone.
His jaw tightened as he read it.
"Who sent that?" he said.
"I don't know."
He looked back at the road.
"Pull up Lauren's contact," he said.
"Don't text her.
May you like
I'll call her when we get home."
But Lauren called first.
