No Longer Color-Blind

After three years of marriage, I thought I knew everything about Nathan Cross.

He always held his glass in his left hand. He slept on the right side of the bed and picked every last piece of cilantro out of his noodles.

He couldn't remember our anniversary, but he never forgot when my period was due.

He had plenty of other quirks, too.

He couldn't tell deep forest green from black. He bought nothing but black, white, or gray clothes and wouldn't go near red or green. Whenever he crossed the street, he waited for someone else to step off the curb first.

And he never offered to drive.

Three years ago, we'd nearly died in a car accident.

I'd worked until midnight, and Nathan had come to pick me up. "I'll drive," he'd said. "You get some rest."

At an intersection, he ran a red light.

A semi came barreling toward us, its horn blaring. I screamed and grabbed the steering wheel. We missed the truck by inches, but it tore off our side mirror.

I asked if he hadn't seen the light was red.

For a long time, he said nothing.

"You drive from now on."

That was all he said.

Later, I looked it up: red-green color blindness. I pulled up color-vision test plates on my phone, and Nathan couldn't make out a single one.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

"I didn't want you to think I was useless."

From that day on, I never let him take the wheel again.

Nobody else knew. Not even his mother.

He told everyone the crash had left him afraid of driving, and they believed him. His mother, Diane, even patted his hand and said, "That's all right, honey. Claire can drive."

So when Nathan returned from a two-week business trip and casually announced, "I'll drive us to pick up your parents tomorrow," I nearly dropped my water glass.

"It's fine. I'll drive," I said.

"You've been driving all day. Take a break." He stroked my hair. "Now that I'm back, I want to pull my weight."

His voice was gentle. His expression was completely natural.

It was exactly the kind of thing Nathan would say.

So why did a chill creep down my spine?

He'd come through the front door the right way: left shoulder first, giving the sticky lock a little shove.

He'd taken off his shoes the right way: left first, then right, both kicked all the way to the back of the shoe rack.

Even his hug was right. His chin rested on top of my head, his left arm circled my waist, and his right hand ruffled my hair.

He remembered everything.

He remembered that I hated cilantro. That I'd worn a white dress the first time we met. And the movie we'd seen on our first date.

He even remembered things nobody but the two of us could know, like how I talked in my sleep and everything I said was the name of a dish.

"You yelled 'pot roast' three times last night," he teased.

I stared at him.

He knew that, too.

How could this man possibly be an impostor?

But those three words, "I'll drive us," stuck in my head like a splinter I couldn't pull out.

I started watching him.

The next morning, he went into our walk-in closet to change. I deliberately took out a forest-green shirt, held it against myself, and asked, "What do you think?"

He glanced over. "Looks great. You look good in anything."

I smiled and hung it back up.

The real Nathan wouldn't have answered like that.

He couldn't distinguish that particular shade of green from black, which was why he always thought I looked best in black.

Once, I'd worn a dark green dress, and he'd frowned at it for ages before saying, "That color makes you look old."

I'd given him hell for having terrible taste.

Only later did I realize that what he saw as "black" wasn't the same thing other people saw when they looked at forest green.

He had his own peculiar sense of style.

The man in my closet didn't.

He'd simply said I looked good.

No frown. No hesitation.

Just a safe, easy answer, picked at random.