Secret Lives of Second Wives

by Catherine Todd

  “Well, why not?” I asked.

  JANET MOVED OVER TO HELP MEREDITH record the gifts and enact the traditional shower ritual of saving all the bows into one big ribbon bouquet. There were tedious rules about not breaking the ribbons and what you’re supposed to do with the bouquet, but it had been so long since I’d been to a shower that I didn’t remember what they were. Justin’s mother took up a position on Meredith’s other side, in her rightful place of honor. The two mothers were tense and brittle, but Meredith was oblivious. She was having fun. She was actually giggling. She opened my food dehydrator and blew me a kiss across the patio.

  I waved back and smiled. “You’re welcome,” I said. We were both trying hard.

  I looked at her with her bouquet and realized that Janet was right. You don’t know what you’re getting into. You might think you’re marrying one person, but when you get to the end of the aisle, there’s a whole throng waiting, like a gathering of ghosts. Parents, children, friends, pets—they’re all part of the package. It’s surprising that you should need to be reminded of that, but sometimes the most obvious things are the least apparent.

  “Could I get all the family over here for one more picture?” the photographer called. Meredith and Janet and Justin’s mother and sister were lining up at the pool’s edge.

  This time I stood up without checking for a reaction. Commitment is a journey, not a destination. I took a step toward them.

  EUROPRESS INTERNATIONAL: Unnamed sources in the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy (Minatom) today confirmed reports that a major nuclear disaster—potentially on the scale of Chernobyl—has been averted. Sources said that the leak in the aging Doubinski reactor was spotted and sealed in time owing to new review measures and the quick action of a nuclear-response team dispatched by Moscow. The response teams are an innovation resulting from the recent reshuffling of Minatom and the appointment of Dr. Alexei Strela, at one time a physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator facility in California, as Director of Ecology and Safety. Minatom had no official comment.