We’d just sat down to eat when David stood up and asked the host for a microphone.
***
“Dear guests,” he said, and the room quieted in that warm, expectant way rooms do when they think they’re about to hear something lovely. “I have important news, and it’s time for all of you to learn the truth.”
I believed every word.
I clasped my hands together under the table, genuinely thinking he’d prepared some kind of surprise for me.
He had.
Just not the kind I’d ever imagined sitting across from in a room full of the people who loved us.
He walked to the restaurant entrance, opened the door, and led a young woman inside by the hand. She looked about 35. Dark hair, a green dress, the kind of effortless beauty that exists mostly because nothing has worn it down yet.
“This is Lydia,” David said, smiling like a man unveiling a gift he was proud of. “My true love.”
The room went very still.
She looked about 35.
“On this special day,” he continued, “I’d like to announce that I’m divorcing my wife, and I’d like to introduce Lydia to all of my family and friends.”
I didn’t move. I don’t think I could have, even if I’d tried.
Forty years.
Had I really been that blind the whole time?
The room gasped, and somewhere in that gasp I heard a chair scrape, a glass tip over, and a child ask too loudly what was happening.
“I’m divorcing my wife.”
My daughter, Claire, was sitting beside me. She put her hand over mine and squeezed it once, hard.
“Mom,” she whispered. “Please don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.”
I didn’t understand what that meant. I barely understood anything in that moment, sitting there in my new dress with my heart somewhere on the floor beneath the table.
Claire stood up.
She walked to her father with a steadiness that didn’t match anything I was feeling, and she took the microphone gently from his hand.
I didn’t understand what that meant.
“Oh, Dad,” she said, and her voice carried clean through the silent restaurant. “I’m so happy for you. In fact, I have something for you too.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope.
