“My husband...” She chews on the inside of her cheek. I want to nudge her forward, encourage her to talk to me, but I’m afraid that if I say anything at all the spell will be broken and she’ll shut down, so I wait.

“He does have a temper. Sometimes...” Her voice falters like she’s not exactly sure how to word things. “I think his past affected him more than he’s willing to admit. But I can assure you, he doesn’t hit me.” I’m hung up on part of her explanation, the part about his past. Does she know something that I don’t?

“His past?” I interrupt. “What do you mean?”

I manage to keep my face neutral, but I can feel my eyebrows pushing toward each other, my forehead wanting to crease with worry.

Hannah clears her throat, and it’s a very ladylike sound. I can barely take it; I want her to spit it out. There are already feelings of intense jealousy curdling in my stomach that she would know something that I do not.

“Well,” she says finally. “He comes from a large family...”

No shit, I want to say.

“Someone in his family...well, someone hurt him.”

I shake my head. “Hurt him how?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Hannah says, and I can tell she’s already regretting saying anything. “Roughed him up for fun, bullied him. I’m making it sound lighter than it actually is...”

I stare at her, confused. So Seth was teased by his siblings? What’s new? My sister once tossed my favorite doll into the fireplace and looked on contentedly while I sobbed.

She waits until the server filling her water glass has walked away and then she leans close to me. “He had an older brother who was a psychopath,” she whispers. “Would do terrible things to him, like hold him down in his bathwater until he thought he was going to die, and would sneak into his room at night and...well...touch him.”

I balk. “He was molested?” I search my memory for anything—anything Seth has said about his brother. But the truth was that he hardly spoke about him; I didn’t even know his name. I feel a rush of anguish; I was less important. He didn’t share his hurt with me. I take a long drink of water, hoping she doesn’t notice my expression.

Hannah draws back at my outburst and then quickly looks around to see if anyone’s heard us. There’s no one in the direct vicinity, and her face relaxes.

I’m impatient with her. Screw caring what people think at a time like this. My heart is racing a mile a minute and I feel positively sick to my stomach. If that were true, how could he not have told me? As I stare at Hannah, at her perfectly sharp cheekbones, and full lips—pursed disapprovingly at me—I feel both betrayed and hurt. She can see it on my face because she reaches across the table to grab my wrist. Squeezing it softly, she watches me with her big blue eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “Did I say something to upset you?”

“No, not at all. It’s just a terrible thing...” I try to pull myself away from her as gently as possible, keeping a tight smile on my lips. I hate her in this moment. She seems to buy my lie, because she lets me go, retiring her hands to her lap.

“How many years did it continue?” I ask.

“On and off through most of his childhood. Until his brother left for college.”

“So you’re saying he sometimes...does things...out of anger, because of what his brother did?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. We argue like all married couples and sometimes things get very heated. I’ve slapped him,” she admits. “I felt terrible after, of course. And he grabbed my arm after, to stop me from doing it again—those were the bruises you saw last time.” She looks away, ashamed.

In that moment, I have the urge to tell her everything. Who I am, what I know about her and Regina. The way he shoved me and never apologized, which made me think he didn’t realize he’d done it. Wouldn’t everything be so clear if we could lay it all out between us? I’d certainly understand more about Seth. Or I could just ask Seth about it, but then he’d know I’d been talking to Hannah.

“What about the bruise beneath your eye?” I swallow the emotion lodged like a hunk of bread in my throat and look her squarely in the eyes.

“No, it’s not like that. I was doing a house project and walked into an open cabinet. Really. He just gets moody, withdrawn... He needs his alone time, you know? Sometimes I think it’s because he was always surrounded by people.” She presses her lips together. I try a new tactic. I came here to get information, after all, although perhaps not of this dark nature.

“Okay, tell me the good things about him, the things you love.” I smile encouragingly as Hannah chews on her lip. “You are having his baby, after all. There are some things you must like...”

“Of course, yeah, of course.” She seems relieved that I’ve changed the subject to something more palatable.

I notice the immediate change in her. When Hannah talks about Seth this way, her eyes take on a glow and her lips soften to the smile of a young girl entirely smitten. I recognize the symptoms, as I’ve so often seen them in myself.

“He’s charming, and he’s kind. He spoils me, always asking if I need anything and if I’m okay. He bought me a baby name book and he likes to hear my ideas...the small things...” I remember Seth telling me about the baby name book saying that Hannah—or Monday, as he called her—wanted a boy.

“He’s fun,” she continues. “Likes to joke around and laugh. I really love that about him.”

Have I ever considered that Seth’s sense of humor is his strong suit? I tend to be the witty one in the relationship, always quipping something or the other while he laughs.

“Right,” I say when she pauses. “Those are all wonderful things.” She nods, encouraged, and I think her eyes fill with tears, but then our server arrives to refill our water.

“Can we change the subject?” she says after he leaves.

“Sure.” I smile. “Where is he tonight?” I don’t know why I ask, except that when people ask me where my husband is, I always falter before making up some lame excuse.

“He’s... He should be home,” she says. “I told him I’d be out for the night.”

“Does he mind that you have friends?”

“He doesn’t know,” she says. “He’s protective of me, of who I spend time with.”

I don’t miss the way her eyes dart left, searching for the right answer...the easiest answer.

I nod, but I can’t help wondering if she’s working things out with him or herself, resigning herself to be the type of woman he wants. She’s so much younger than me, close to my age when I met Seth in that coffee shop. If anyone had tried to warn me back then I would have laughed, brushed off their concern. Seth was a good man, family-focused; if he was occasionally moody, that was fine.