I didn’t flinch when she said it. Her voice trembled just enough to sound brave, a performance calculated for maximum sympathy.
“I’m pregnant with his baby.”
Three hundred guests gasped in unison. The sound sucked the air right out of the vaulted ceilings of St. Jude’s Cathedral. The string quartet fell silent, bows hovering awkwardly over strings, the final note of Pachelbel’s Canon dying a strangled death. Cameras froze mid-click, the photographers unsure if they were documenting a nuptial or a crime scene.
My soon-to-be-husband, Daniel, stood beside me. His face, usually flushed with the arrogance of a man who has never been told “no,” drained of all color. He looked like a ghost trapped in a bespoke tuxedo. His mouth opened and closed, a fish gasping on a dock, but no sound came out.
And me?
I smiled. A slow, serene curvature of the lips that didn’t reach my eyes.
Because I hadn’t just been expecting this. I had been waiting for it.
