I had just proposed, and dinner with her family was supposed to be a celebration—until her stepmother walked in late and I recognized her instantly. Seven years earlier, we’d shared a brief, intense affair, never exchanging full names, never imagining our lives would collide like this. Now she stood there, perfectly composed, shaking my hand as if we were strangers.
Nothing was said, but everything was understood. We carried on through dinner, bound by a silent agreement to bury the past. Years later, my wife still jokes that I’m oddly formal with her stepmom. She doesn’t know that one truth, spoken aloud, could shatter everything—and I intend to keep it that way.
