The first sign that something was wrong was the empty chair beside me.
It had been placed at the center of the long dining table, directly between my husband’s father and me, with a cream linen napkin folded over a gold-rimmed plate.
My name is Maren Caldwell, and that Saturday evening was supposed to be about somebody else’s marriage.
My in-laws, Richard and Evelyn Caldwell, were celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary at their home outside Richmond, Virginia.
They had invited almost sixty people.
Family members had driven in from North Carolina and Maryland, old friends had flown down from New York, and several of Richard’s longtime business partners were standing beneath strings of white lights in the backyard with glasses of champagne.
The Caldwell house sat on several wooded acres west of the city, the kind of place where every room seemed designed for photographs.
That night, white roses covered the dining tables.
A pianist played near the French doors.
On the mantel stood a framed black-and-white photograph of Richard and Evelyn on their wedding day.
Forty years.
That was the number everyone kept mentioning.
Forty years together.
Forty years of choosing each other.
Forty years of surviving everything life had thrown at them.
I remember thinking how strange it was that my husband was missing from a celebration like that.
His name was Adrian Caldwell.
We had been married for nine years.
And according to the text he had sent me at 5:41 that afternoon, he was running late because of a problem at work.
Don’t wait for me. I’ll be there before dinner.
That was what he wrote.
So I didn’t wait.
I arrived alone.
Evelyn hugged me at the door and immediately asked where Adrian was.
“Work,” I said.
Her expression tightened.
“Tonight?”
“He said something came up.”
Richard heard us from across the foyer.
He looked at me for half a second longer than necessary.
Then he smiled.
“His loss. Come inside.”
I didn’t understand that look at the time.
Later, I would.
At seven-thirty, everyone moved into the dining room.
Adrian still wasn’t there.
His younger sister, Camille, sat across from me and kept checking her phone.
Finally, she leaned forward.
“Have you heard from him?”
“Not since five-forty.”
“That’s weird.”
“He said work.”
Camille gave me a look that suggested she had an opinion she wasn’t going to share.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
