I gesture to the carafe hiding behind the decaf coffeepot to the left.

“Thanks. So does that help you any?” Lucy asks.

“It does. But my husband’s secret,” I tell her, “can’t be zeroed out like a debt.”

She sets the creamer back down on the table and stirs the contents of her Styrofoam cup.

“Gary was in his job for thirty years. He sliced every single one of his weekly paychecks in half to gamble. I’ll be paying off Gary’s debt for the next twenty years, Charlotte,” she says, topping off her coffee. “I turned sixty in April. Do the math.” Lucy laughs at the absurdity.

“Look, I don’t know why he never told me about the gambling. I guess it’s because he knew it would hurt me. But at the end of the day, nothing about his problem changes the experience I had with him. It was sunbeams and rainbows, as far as I knew—respectful, reliable, always there for me. But I get that’s hard to explain to other people—they’ll push me to focus on the negative—so I just don’t bring it up at all. I take care of it privately myself. In fact, you’re the first person I’ve told this to, actually.”

“Really? Why me? I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” I quickly reassure her.

“Charlotte, dear. I didn’t tell you because I thought you were good at keeping secrets. I told you because sometimes you just know who you can trust. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make the rounds before the library kicks us out of the meeting room. I hope to see you back here again, Charlotte. It was nice talking to ya.”

With my mom so far away, I can’t tell you how badly my heart needed to hear a ya right now.

The thought of Decker choosing not to tell me something feels like it goes against all that is holy in a marriage. But something in Lucy’s anecdote triggers a new thought. Would Decker withhold something significant from me if it meant not hurting me? What if he thought about this—really thought about this—and came to the conclusion that it was better I did not know he got a girl pregnant? If I did know, I’d worry about it. I’d stew about it. I’d be confused about starting our own family and if our first child would really be ours or just mine. I’d struggle if we never had a boy and the Austin name never had a proper chance to live on. I know myself. And Decker knew me. I trusted him a thousand percent. I trusted him with our relationship—with our future. He wouldn’t do something to hurt me. He would, however, choose to protect me at all costs. Are those the same things?

As I buckle my seat belt, I spill a little of my grief group to-go coffee on my lap. So I pop open the glove box and reach for a spare fast-food napkin. That’s when I notice something else in there: my engagement ring.