Free The First Husband by Laura Dave

way—as a place you were supposed to be.
    And I must have been wearing my enthusiasm on my face because Griffin lowered my camera and met my eyes. Gave me his biggest smile.
    “Makes a good first impression, doesn’t it?” he said.
    I nodded. “It does,” I said.
    Griffin took a right off Main Street, and then another, until we were crawling into the outskirts of town: the picture-perfect Craftsman houses lined up like jewelry charms, shiny and bright against the snow. We drove farther out—the houses separating out from each other, space growing between them, farms starting to pop up. Then we took a final right onto Naples Road, and he slowed the car down.
    There it was. A modest Craftsman, all by its lonesome. Griffin’s house. My dream house. I don’t mean that in any overly indulgent way—like it was the most special house I’d ever seen or the house I’d always longed for—I mean, quite literally, it was a house I’d seen in my dreams. Nighttime dreams, daytime ones. Same blue shutters and strong posts, a wooden porch complete with rocking chairs. Two windows peeking out from the second story, like eyes. A white brick chimney. Making me smile.
    There was the wedding, of course. In a small chapel right near the Las Vegas border, on our way across the country. It involved an ivory sundress, a pair of seventy-year-old witnesses, simple gold wedding bands, and a poem “Happiness” that Griffin read out loud to me. There was a very fun (and too-fast) car trip minimoon across the rest of the country together. There was all of that. But the two of us sitting in the car, on Naples Road—the world’s smallest U-Haul trailing out behind us, carrying the pieces of my old life that I’d decided to bring (a few striped chairs, my file cabinets, my favorite photographs of Mila)—that was the moment. I was staring at this house I was sure I’d seen before—and that was the beginning of my new life, my new marriage.
    I twirled my wedding ring around my finger. “So,” I said, “This is where we live now?”
    He nodded. “This is where we live now,” he said. “You ready to head in?”
    Before I could answer, Griffin shut off the car and walked around to open the passenger door. He opened the door for me and proceeded to pick me up in his arms, carrying me down the snowy sidewalk—pausing at the front door, preparing to carry me over the threshold, into the house.
    I was laughing, a little uncomfortably, mostly because I felt embarrassed. I wasn’t good at displays of romantic affection, especially traditional ones. I used to think that I found them corny. It would only occur to me later that it wasn’t so much that I found them corny, but that I found them unfamiliar. But Griffin seemed determined to change that, moving us confidently in the direction of the front door, turning the knob while holding me, moving us both inside, onto the green hallway mat that read WELCOME.
    “We’re here,” Griffin said, and kissed me.
    Only someone else answered. “Hey there . . .”
    A man’s voice came from deep inside the house, and Griffin dropped me, bottom first, onto the welcome mat, right on top of the WELCOME.
    I looked up, shocked. First at Griffin, who looked angry, then at the guy he was staring angrily at, who was casually standing in front of us, eating a Fudgsicle. He had a four-day shadow, his dark hair uncombed. But that couldn’t hide how handsome he was, with piercing green eyes and a smile that matched Griffin’s. There was a small child on either side of him—one with his own Fudgsicle, one holding what looked like a plastic yellow watering can. They were five-years-old, six at the oldest. And they were twins. Practically identical, very adorable redheaded twins.
    “You scared the shit out of me,” Griffin said.
    “Will you watch your language for Christ’s sake? ” the guy said. “We have impressionable children here.”
    Griffin leaned down to pick me up off the floor. “You okay?” he