The Anniversary Ambush

My phone buzzed on the dresser just as I was stepping back to look at the room one final time.

Lucy.

I almost let it ring. I was already a mess of nerves and the last thing I needed was to start crying before Tyler even got home. But it was Lucy, and Lucy always knew when I needed her before I knew it myself, so I picked up.

"Is everything set?" Her voice was bright, eager, like a woman who had been thinking about this all day. "Tell me everything is perfect over there."

"It is," I said, pressing my free hand flat against my stomach, willing the flutter of nerves to settle. "Flowers, candles, his favorite Malbec breathing on the table. I even wore the gold thing." I laughed softly, the sound catching in my throat.

"The gold *thong*," she corrected, and I could hear the grin in her voice. "Say it right, Sarah. Own it."

"The gold thong," I repeated, heat rising to my cheeks even though I was alone. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic. Now talk to me — how are you really feeling? And don't you dare say fine."

I let out a breath that had been sitting in my chest all day. Leave it to Lucy to already know. "I'm terrified," I admitted, sinking onto the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb the rose petals I'd spent forty minutes arranging across the sheets. "He's going to walk in and I don't even know how he's going to react. You know how Tyler is. He doesn't do surprises. He doesn't do *any* of this." I gestured vaguely at the room around me even though she couldn't see it .

"Sarah." Her voice was firm but warm, the way it got when she was done letting me spiral. "Stop. Just stop for a second and look at what you've done. You did all of that for him. For your marriage. Do you understand how many women would have walked out that door years ago and never looked back?"

"I almost did," I said quietly.

"But you didn't. Because you love him. And he loves you, even when the two of you have forgotten how to show it." She paused. "Tonight is going to remind him. The dinner, the room, and then you drop the news — Sarah, he's going to fall apart in the best way possible. I know Tyler. I've known him almost as long as you have. That man is going to hold you and not let go."

Something in my chest loosened at that, just slightly. I looked at the pregnancy test sitting on the dresser beside the candles, those two undeniable pink lines that had made me slide down the bathroom wall that morning and sob into my knees for a full ten minutes. After four years of trying. After three miscarriages that hollowed me out in ways I still didn't have words for. After all the nights Tyler and I lay on opposite sides of our enormous bed, the silence between us heavier than anything either of us could have said.

"I just keep thinking — what if this one doesn't hold either?" The fear slipped out before I could stop it. "What if I tell him tonight and then two weeks from now I'm calling him from a hospital bathroom again and—"

"Hey. Hey, stop." Lucy's voice dropped, gentle now. "You cannot live the rest of your life waiting for the worst to happen. You're pregnant. That baby is already fighting for you. Tonight you fight for it too. You walk out there, you let your husband see the real you — not the woman four years of grief has been slowly swallowing — and you remind him what you two are made of."

I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, blinking hard. I refused to ruin my makeup. It had taken me an hour.

"What would I do without you?" I managed.

She laughed softly. "Honestly? You'd be a mess. But lucky for you, you don't have to find out. That's what best friends are for. Call me the second he leaves in the morning so I can hear every detail."

"I will. I love you, Lu."

"Love you more. Now go."

The call ended.

I sat for a moment in the quiet, just breathing, letting her words settle over me like something warm. Then I stood and looked at the room — and for the first time that night, something other than anxiety moved through me.

*Tonight,* I told myself. *Tonight everything changes.*

I caught my reflection in the vanity mirror and almost didn't recognize the woman looking back. She was nervous. She was hopeful in the reckless, terrifying way you could only be hopeful when you had already survived the worst. I smoothed my hand over the silk robe hanging at my waist, then let it fall open. The gold thong. Tyler's favorite. I bit the edge of my lip.

I reached over and picked up the pregnancy test one more time, running my thumb across the lines, and then I tucked it carefully into my bra, right against my heart, where it had been sitting all day.

The sound of the front door opening downstairs stopped my heart.

I dropped the robe onto the chaise lounge. Straightened my spine. Positioned myself at the foot of the bed the way I'd been practicing in my head all afternoon, one hand resting on the post, the candlelight doing what candlelight was supposed to do. I heard his footsteps on the marble below. His stride. Seven years and I knew it like a song.

The bedroom door swung open.

"Welcome home, my—"

The words dissolved in my mouth as Tyler stood in the doorway. But he wasn't alone.

A woman walked in beside him in a red dress that skimmed her thighs, golden hair tumbling over one shoulder, her arm looped through his the way you held onto something that belonged to you. She was laughing at something he'd said on the way up, her head tilted back, completely at ease, completely at home in a room she had never once been invited into.

I knew that laugh.

God, I knew that laugh.

The wine bottle hit the floor before I even realized I'd dropped it, red spreading across the ivory rug like spilled blood, my mouth went dry, and every single thought in my head went quiet except for one.

No. No, no, no.

Lucy turned, and her eyes found me standing in the candlelight in the gold thong I had worn for my husband…

…and she smiled.