Because suddenly, the ridiculous story about a “family tradition” didn’t feel like the strangest thing in the room.
The strangest thing was that my husband had known.
He had known his father would come into our room.
He had known I would be uncomfortable.
And now I was realizing he had also known about the kitten.
“What is going on?” I asked.
My voice was quiet.
Too quiet.
My husband’s face changed.
The confident smile he had worn earlier disappeared.
My father-in-law lowered his eyes and slowly placed the kitten on the bed.
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
That sentence.
Those exact words.
They were the words people said when things were exactly what they looked like.
I stepped away from the bed and wrapped the blanket around myself.
“My wedding night,” I said slowly, “my husband brings his father into our room, tells me I have to accept some strange tradition, and now there’s a kitten crawling on my back at three in the morning.”
