I didn’t go anywhere while my ex-husband married my sister. But when my other sister showed him while they were eating toast and painted them red, I knew I had to see it for myself.
Hello, my name is Lucy. Before about a year ago, I thought I had the life that most people dream of. I’m 32 years old. My husband kissed my cheeks before work and put little notes in my lunchbox. I had a steady job and a nice home.
I was in charge of billing for a dentist group just outside of Milwaukee. I liked it, even though it wasn’t showy. I liked my pattern and the walks I took at lunchtime. When my husband Oliver said “Hi, beautiful,” even when I was still wearing zit cream, I liked the way my warm socks felt right after coming out of the machine.
I should have known that life wouldn’t stay that easy, though.
My house was always a mess because I have three younger sisters. Something like that will teach you about order. Judy is 30 years old, tall, blonde, and always the center of attention. Even when she was 13, she looked like she had it all together. She got free stuff from strangers.
Then there’s Lizzie, the middle child. She’s cool and smart, and she once used logic and charm to get a mall cop to drop a shoplifting charge. Finally, there’s Misty, who is 26 years old, moody, unreliable, and in some ways both the baby and the boss of us all. For some reason, they wrote her name wrong on the cup and made her angry at a Starbucks.
As the oldest, I was the one you could count on. The one who got braces first, got a job first, and was the one Mom told other kids not to do stupid things around when they did.
“You want to move in with your boyfriend at 21? Remember how that worked out for Lucy.”
Most days, I didn’t mind. I liked being the helper who knew how to do things like fix holes in the wall or do my taxes. They called me whenever they needed something, like money for rent, a ride to a job interview, or someone to pull their hair back at 3 a.m. I always showed up.
And it felt like someone was finally there for me when I met Oliver.
There was something calm about him that made you think everything would be okay. He was 34 years old and worked in IT. He laughed so hard it hurt my stomach, made me tea when I had headaches, and put me to bed when I fell asleep watching true crime shows on the couch.
We had a routine after two years of marriage. Every Friday we got food, and on Sundays we were lazy and played board games in our pajamas. I was six months along with my first pregnancy. We already knew what the name would be: Emma for a girl and Nate for a boy.
Then, one Thursday night, he got home late. He stood in the doorway with his hands clenched while I was making stir-fry veggies in the kitchen.
He told her, “Lucy, we need to talk.”
I remember wiping my hands on the dishtowel. My heart was racing, but I wasn’t scared. I thought he might have lost his job again or crashed the car. Something easy to fix.
But look at his face. I remember it well. Pale and drawn. Something about him looked like it had been building up for days.
He paused and then said, “Judy’s pregnant.”
I opened my eyes.
I laughed at first. I really laughed. I just let out this dry, shocked sound.
I looked at him and said, “Wait, is that my sister Judy?”
He didn’t answer. I only nodded once.
Everything was slanted. The only sound I remember is the pan sizzling behind me. There was just a heavy silence that made me feel like I couldn’t stand up straight.
He quickly said, “I didn’t mean for it to happen.” “We didn’t plan it, Lucy. We just… fell in love. I didn’t want to lie to you anymore. I can’t fight it. I’m so sorry.”
As I looked at him, my hands went to my stomach on their own. My whole world fell apart as I felt her kick. She wasn’t even born yet, but she was our daughter.
He said in a soft voice, “I want a divorce.” “I want to be with her.”
He then said, “Please don’t hate her. This was my fault. I’ll take care of you both, I swear.”
I’m not sure how I got to the couch. The walls were closing in on me as I sat there and stared. Everything had a burnt garlic smell to it. I had no idea what to do with my hands because my baby was moving.
Things went bad very quickly. Mum told me she was “heartbroken” but that “love is complicated.” Dad didn’t say anything. He looked at the paper over and over and said, “Kids these days have no shame.”
Lizzie stopped coming to family meals. She was the only one who seemed mad at me. She said it was all like “a slow-motion train wreck.”
Some people whispered. People at work, in the neighborhood, and family too. I even got a fake-sweet message on Facebook from my old high school lab partner saying, “I heard what happened.” I forgot that she used to steal my pens and flirt with my prom date, but she said, “If you ever need to talk.”
The worst part then came. The stress. The sickness that wouldn’t go away. Every night, the sadness pushed down on my chest. I began to bleed three weeks after Oliver dropped that bomb.
It was too late.
There was no one with me when I lost Emma in a cold, white hospital room.
Oliver did not show up. Not even a phone call. Judy sent me a text message that said, “I’m sorry you’re hurting.”
That was it. That was all my sister said.
After a few months, they chose to get married, and soon after, they were going to have a baby. The wedding was fancy and had 200 guests at the best place in town. My parents paid for it. They told him, “The child needs a father” and “It’s time to move on.”
I got an invite from them. Like I was a friend or a cousin from out of the blue. I remember having my name written on it in that fake gold script.
I didn’t go. I wasn’t able to go.
I stayed in that night. I watched bad romantic movies and wore Oliver’s old hoodie. The kind where everyone gets what they want and falls in love in the end. A bottle of wine and some popcorn helped me forget about Judy going down the aisle in a dress I had helped her choose on a random girl’s day, before everything went wrong.
My phone rang around 9:30 p.m.
It was Misty.
Even though her voice was shaking, I could tell she was laughing so hard she was out of breath.
She said in a voice that was half whisper and half shout, “Lucy, you won’t believe what just happened. Get dressed in jeans, a sweater, or anything else. Drive to the restaurant. You don’t want to miss this.”
I stopped, shocked.
“What are you talking about?”
She had already hung up.
She told him, “Just trust me.” “Get here. Now.”
After Misty hung up, I looked at my phone for a moment. My thumb was on the screen because I thought she might call back and say she was joking.
She didn’t.
Instead, I sat there and listened to the quiet in my apartment. The only sounds I could hear were the cars outside and the washing. Some of me wanted to forget about it all. Actually, I didn’t think I could handle seeing any more pain. I had already been through a lot.
But Misty’s words stuck with me in some way. It wasn’t feeling sorry for them. It wasn’t even kindness. Something else, something sharp and living, like she had just seen a matchstick fall into gasoline.
And whatever it was… I did not want to just hear about it.
After ten minutes, I was driving across town, and my heart was racing the whole way.
As soon as I pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot, I knew something wasn’t right. A group of people in suits and gowns stood outside the doorway with their arms crossed, phones out, and their eyes wide. A woman in a lilac dress let out a gasp when she saw me coming up the path.
The air inside was thick. There were quiet conversations all around. Some people were straining to see what was going on at the front of the hall, where there seemed to be the most noise.
They were right there.
Judy was standing next to the flower entrance with what looked like blood all over her white wedding dress. Her hair was stuck on top of her head. Oliver was next to her, trying to calm her down. His tux was ruined and dripping with blood.
I thought something terrible had happened for a very scary second. My stomach turned.
The smell then hit me.
It wasn’t blood. It was paint. Deep, thick red paint that stuck to the tables, the floor, and the pricey white roses they had likely spent a fortune on.
When I saw Misty near the back, I stopped in the entry, not sure what I had just walked into.
She was laughing so hard that she looked like she was going to blow up.
“Finally,” she said softly as she grabbed my wrist. “You made it. Come on.”
I asked, “What happened?” I was still confused.
She pursed her lips and pulled me to the corner.
“You need to see it for yourself,” she said, taking her phone out of her bag. “I got the whole thing. Sit.”
We hid behind the back wall from the noise, and she pressed the play button.
The video began right after the toasts. As people raised their glasses, Judy wiped her eyes with a napkin. Oliver was grinning like the world’s most punchable golden retriever. Lizzie then got up.
I looked at the screen and blinked.
Lizzie. The calm one. The “fix-it” sister. The person who hadn’t been to a family event in almost a year.
She seemed to… in charge. But her voice was a little shaky, which made me suspicious.
“Before we toast,” she said, “there’s something everyone needs to know about the groom.”
People moved around in their seats. You could hear the air leaving the room as it became still.
Lizzie made it clear: “Oliver lies.” “He told me he loved me. He told me he’d leave Judy. He told me to get rid of the baby because it would ‘ruin everything.’”
In the video, I could hear people gasp. A fork fell off.
Judy stood up on screen and blinked as if she hadn’t heard her right.
She snapped, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Lizzie didn’t move, though.
She looked straight at Oliver and said, “Lucy lost her baby because of this man. He’s poison. He destroys everything he touches.”
The room had an exciting sound. People were moving around in their chairs, talking, and taking out their phones. As Misty tried to keep her hands steady, the camera zoomed in a little.
The hammer was then dropped by Lizzie.
“You want to know why I’ve been gone? Why I stopped answering your calls? It’s because I was pregnant. With his baby. And I couldn’t face any of you until now.”
I could feel my breath getting short.
In the video, the room blew up. There were gasps and whispers, and someone said, “What the hell?” loud enough for me to understand. As Misty zoomed in, the camera moved a little.
The woman made Judy scream, “You disgusting woman!”
As usual, Lizzie kept her cool and said, “At least I finally saw him for what he is.”
Then there was chaos.
Oliver charged at her with an angry look on his face and tried to grab the microphone. Judy yelled and rushed in behind him. Chairs got scratched. A lot of people stood up.
Like always, Lizzie kept her cool. She reached under the table, pulled out a silver bucket, and threw red paint all over them with great accuracy.
There was a lot of yelling. People had their phones up and were recording the event. Oliver yelled something that Judy couldn’t understand while her hands flailed in front of her, red paint running down her arms like in a bad horror movie.
Lizzie put the mic down on the desk.
“Enjoy your wedding,” she told him quietly.
She then left right away.
The video was over.
I could only stare at Misty’s phone.
“Wait,” I finally said. “He was with Lizzie, too?”
Misty said yes and put her phone back in her purse.
“He also tried to sleep with me,” she said with a roll of the eyes. “Back in March. Sent me a sob story about how lonely he was and how Judy didn’t understand him. I told him to go cry to someone else.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
When Misty asked, “Are you okay?”
I closed my eyes a few times.
I said, “I believe so.” “I mean… no. But also, kind of? I don’t know.”
The two of us looked back at the front again. Oliver and Judy were still cleaning the red paint off of their clothes. Most of the guests had left; some were shaking their heads and others were trying to hide smiles. The wedding cake was left alone.
It was like seeing a building fall slowly while knowing that no one inside was worth saving.
I finally went outside into the cool night air. Misty stuck with me.
We stood still near the edge of the parking lot.
“You didn’t deserve any of this,” she told him after a minute.
I took a quick look at her.
I said, “I know.” “But for the first time in a long time, I feel like I can breathe again.”
Of course, the wedding didn’t happen. The florist came to get the table decorations. They tried to look good, but it was like using a yard hose to save a house on fire.
Judy didn’t talk to any of us for weeks.
Oliver has pretty much faded from the town’s rumors. Some people said he moved to another state. Some people said he tried to make things right with Lizzie, but she told him to delete her number.
What about me? I went to therapy. Pumpkin was the name of the cat I got. He liked to sleep on my belly, where Emma used to kick. I went for walks again during my lunch breaks. I didn’t go on dates right away. I first had to find myself. I smiled more, though.
I knew something had changed, even though it was messy, embarrassing, and hurt like hell.
I was free.
Without the lies. Not feeling guilty. And free from the version of myself that tried to please people who didn’t deserve me in the first place.
Some people say that karma shows up all the time, while others say it never does.
But that night, seeing Oliver slip on paint in front of 200 people and Judy scream in her torn dress?
It turned up.
In a metal bucket. And I must say, it was beautiful.