neither of us could assemble flat-pack furniture without questioning our life choices. We discovered that Amy handled emergencies with surprising focus but dreaded difficult conversations after the danger had passed. I learned to leave her a little time when she needed it, and she learned that my silence during an argument usually meant I was searching for the least hurtful way to say what I felt.
By our third anniversary, we had developed small rituals that made our life recognizable. On Friday nights we ordered food from wherever had disappointed us least the previous week. When one of us traveled, we hid a note in the other's bag, often something ridiculous rather than romantic. We sent each other photographs of dogs we couldn't adopt and discussed them as though we were selecting cabinet members. The rituals were not evidence of a perfect marriage. They were evidence that we kept returning to the same table, even after a difficult day, ready to share our lives again.
On our seventh anniversary, after my father had died and work had worn both of us down, I forgot to make a reservation. Amy bought supermarket pasta, put the good dishes on the table, and lit a candle in a jam jar because she couldn't find the proper holders. "A restaurant isn't the anniversary," she said when I apologized. "This is." We ate with our socks against each other under the table, and I promised I would remember that sentence for the rest of my life. Somehow, tonight, with a candlelit restaurant and the best wine on the menu, it felt as if I were being asked to remember it all over again.
Back at Bellwether, Amy's eyes were shining as she gathered the strength to begin. I did not interrupt her. Outside the window, a couple hurried through the rain beneath one umbrella, their shoulders bumping together with every step. I wanted to be those people for a minute, worrying about getting wet instead of whether the life I trusted was about to change shape. Amy swallowed, folded her hands tightly, and finally said, "Before we got married, I was engaged to someone else."
For a moment, I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly. Engaged was such a specific word, involving plans and deposits and the public expectation that two people were about to join their lives. It seemed impossible that an event so large could have remained outside every conversation we'd had in ten years. I knew about the boy she'd kissed behind the high school gym, the terrible apartment she'd rented after college, and the embarrassing haircut she had worn for almost an entire summer. But I did not know that another man had once been waiting at the end of an aisle for her.
"Engaged?" I repeated. The word sounded stiff, almost absurd, in my own mouth. Amy nodded without looking away, as though she'd promised herself she would at least hold my gaze while she told me. "His name was Peter," she said. "We were going to get married in June, the year before you and I met. I ended it three weeks before the wedding."