I looked right at him, and I smiled.
“My dear husband, Elon,” I began. I cleared my throat. And I saw him relax, just a little, reassured by the sweetness of the opening.
He should not have relaxed.
“Three years ago,” I said, “I married a man I thought I knew. I thought I knew him completely. And for two of those three years, I have been a good wife to him. I’ve kept our home. I’ve had his child. I’ve supported his career through more late nights than I can count. I’ve made myself smaller and smaller to make room for him, and I’ve told myself that was love.” I took a breath. The room had gone very still, the way a room does when it senses something is wrong. “I’ve been so tired, this past year, with the baby. And so alone. And I kept telling myself it was normal, that this was just what marriage and motherhood were, that my husband’s constant absence was the price of building our future.”
Elon’s face had begun to change. The color was draining out of it.
“Grace,” he said, low, a warning. “What are you doing?”
“I’m giving a toast, darling,” I said pleasantly. “You’ll want to hear it. Everyone will.”
I looked around the table, at both families, at his parents and mine, at his brother, at my sister holding Sophie now, and then back at Elon.
“Six days ago,” I said, “I called my husband to ask a simple question. Whether he’d be home for dinner. He snapped at me and told me to stop checking up on him, that he was working. And then he set his phone down without hanging up. And for the next minute or so, I got to hear what my husband really thinks of me. Because he wasn’t alone. There was a woman with him. And he didn’t know I could hear.”
The table was utterly silent now. Elon had gone white.
“Grace,” he said again, and there was panic in it now. “Stop. Whatever you think you heard—”
“I heard you say I was driving you insane,” I said calmly, not raising my voice, which somehow made it more devastating. “I heard you say you just wanted me to leave you alone. I heard the woman laugh. And then I heard you say, and I want to make sure I get this exactly right, because I’ve thought about it every hour for six days, I heard you say, of course I hate her. I can barely stand to be in the same house. I barely even touch her anymore. And then I heard you promise her that you’d divorce me and marry her. And then I heard you kiss her.”
