It took us twenty minutes to see the pattern.
For months, Seth had been feeding each of us a false picture of the other.
When Heather asked about my job, he told her I didn’t like talking about it.
When I wondered why Heather seemed distant, he told me she disapproved of my working.
When Heather wanted to call me about childcare, he told her that talking directly made me uncomfortable.
When I said I wanted to get closer to Heather, Seth told me she thought I was cold.
It hadn’t taken much effort.
He just counted on both of us trusting him.
I remembered a Sunday last fall when I watched Maddie and Ben for three hours so Heather could go to a doctor’s appointment. Afterward, Heather thanked me and offered to buy me lunch. I said no thanks.
Later that night, Seth told me Heather had complained that I looked annoyed when she dropped the kids off.
I spent weeks worrying Heather thought I didn’t like her kids.
When I told her this, she looked horrified.
“I told him the exact opposite! I said I didn’t know what I’d do without you.”
I pressed my hands against my forehead.
One honest conversation between the two of us would have stopped all of it.
We just never talked without Seth standing in the middle.
“When he said I wouldn’t have much choice after we got married,” I asked her. “What did you think he meant?”
Heather’s face turned red.
“I didn’t like it. I asked him if you really wanted to do this.”
“And when he said yes?”
She looked at the floor.
“I wanted to believe him.”
“Because you’d already canceled daycare.”
“Yes.”
It hurt. But at least it was honest.
“I heard him laugh,” she said. “I knew it was an awful thing to say. I told myself he was just making a stupid joke.”
She swallowed hard.
“I was scared of losing the arrangement. I know that doesn’t make it okay.”
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t.”
She nodded. She didn’t ask me to make her feel better about it.
My phone lit up. Seth. The fourth time he’d called since I left the bridal room.
I answered.
“Natalie. Thank God. Where are you?”
“Still at the church.”
“Can we talk? Please?”
“We are talking.”
He sighed. “Look. I’m sorry about how everything happened.”
“How everything happened?”
“You know what I mean.”
I looked at Heather.
“Did you tell your sister that if I watched her kids for a year, she’d forget about the sixty-four hundred dollars you owe her?”
Silence.
Then, “Heather told you about that?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not what it sounds like.”
“How many different ways can that sound, Seth?”
“I was trying to solve two problems at once,” he said quietly.
“Your debt and your sister’s daycare.”
“Right.”
“With my job.”
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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