The First Husband

“How about getting into it just a little? Just a little might have been good,” I said. “And what do you know about new relationships anyway? You’ve had the same girlfriend since you were a fetus.”

He ignored me, which was probably wise right then.

“I can’t believe you were with someone so long,” I said. “I can’t believe you were with someone else for that long.”

I felt it bubbling up inside of me, jealousy, and something like a revelation: if time were at least part of the measure of real love—how long it would take, how long it would have to take—for us to know each other the way we’d known the people who came before.

“The important part is that we were broken up well before you and I got together,” he said. “We broke up before I even left for Los Angeles.”

“How long before, Griffin?” I asked. “Six months?”

“Closer to nine,” he said.

“Oh, well, then . . .”

“I was going to get into the details, but I wanted to speak to Gia first. I thought it’d ease things once I knew where she was with everything. I was hoping that by my leaving town for a while, it would put our separation in a better place for her. That she would understand, as hard as it was, that going our own ways was really for the best. For both of us.”

“So you left her?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

He looked pained. “Annie, it was over with Gia for a long time before it was over,” he said. “I can’t explain it exactly. I couldn’t do it anymore, if that makes any sense. It certainly didn’t to her.”

I nodded. Because it did make sense—at least the part about Gia’s not understanding. That’s the brutality of a breakup, isn’t it? The people leaving think they did everything possible, the people left behind think what is possible hasn’t even been tested yet.

“Look, we can talk about this more. We can go into all of it tonight, if that will help. But you need to believe that. You need to believe we were done before I met you. I should have been more forthcoming about how long our history was. But it really is history. I think you know that’s true.”

I did know that—could feel it, actually—which was when a bit of the confusion and jealousy subsided, and I heard the first part of what he said. And I began to process it.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “But she knew, right? She knew from you? That you’re married now?”

He didn’t answer.

“You didn’t tell her?”

He shook his head. “I tried a hundred times to talk to her. But she wouldn’t take my calls. She didn’t respond to my e-mails that I had news for her and we needed to talk. And it felt cruel to spell it out over e-mail. I thought it would be kinder to wait until I was back, to bite the bullet and tell her in person.”

“So you’re telling me that I’m the one who informed your girlfriend of thirteen years that you married someone else less than a year after the two of you broke up?”

I shook my head and looked down. Then I saw it, what I was still wearing around my neck. “And I stole her scarf!”

“Annie, come on . . .”

I headed out to the street, Griffin following close behind. I didn’t know where I wanted to go, maybe just somewhere that this conversation could start over again. But then I turned back to look at him. He looked so upset. He looked so upset that it stopped me.

I looked at him. “I’m a terrible person,” I said.

“Why would you say that?”

I didn’t know exactly how to answer him. I didn’t know how to explain that as disorienting as his revelations were, something was bothering me even more. It almost killed me. It almost killed me that Nick had maybe found someone else so quickly. It almost killed me wondering why he was drawn to someone who seemed so different than me—that seemed so able to fill the holes for him that I couldn’t. And now, without even knowing it, I’d become this other woman to someone else. I had become this other woman to her, and moved right into her hometown without any warning. Not to mention that, on top of the rest of it, I was being kept warm by her homemade orange scarf.

Then it occurred to me. “How could that not be the worst thing?” I asked.

He looked at me, confused.

“That you were with her for thirteen years? How could that not be the worst thing?” I said. “Or the best?”