She instructed us to open it carefully, preserve everything, and avoid responding to whoever had sent it.
Inside was a single photograph.
Andrew stood beside a woman I had never seen before.
They were outside a courthouse.
The date printed on the back was six months before our wedding.
On the reverse, someone had written a sentence in black ink.
Ask your husband what happened to his first wife.
I read it once.
Then again.
Andrew went completely still.
I turned toward him.
“First wife?”
He stared at the photograph as if it had opened a door he had spent years trying to keep shut.
Finally, he whispered, “I was afraid this would come back.”
For several seconds, I couldn’t speak.
My husband had never been married before me.
At least, that was what I believed.
We had discussed our past relationships before our wedding.
He had told me about his college girlfriend, a relationship that ended when he moved for work.
