“Whatever.” I moved to hang up, but his lingering silence was palpable. I sighed. “Was that all?”

Mark swallowed hard. “I know she’s getting married.”

Geez. I knew he’d eventually find out one way or another, but I wished it had been after the ceremony.

“Mark, I—”

“Don’t lie to me; I saw it in the paper. She’s getting married next weekend. You knew. I can’t believe you didn’t know.”

“Uh.” What could I say? I did know. Mark would be devastated when he found out how well I knew. I tucked that thought away to deal with later.

“Why didn’t you tell me? It’s not like I’d care or anything.”

Sure, I thought, and my watercolors would make me millions of dollars someday. I took a deep breath. “I didn’t know how to tell you, and Olivia didn’t want to hurt you, either.”

“Thanks, anyway,” he whispered and hung up.

I stared at the receiver, then knocked it against my forehead a few times before dropping it back in its cradle.

After fifteen minutes, I threw off the sheet and stomped to the bathroom. “Next time he has a day off, I’m calling at three in the morning. That little . . .”

After a shower and breakfast, I no longer felt so hateful toward Mark. I knew I should have told him that Olivia was getting married. I should have told him months ago when I learned about it, but there never seemed to be a good time. And the way marriages go these days, I thought, it would be much easier to announce that Olivia was getting a divorce in a couple of years.

I clicked on the TV.

“It’s going to be a beautiful Independence Day, folks,” the weather girl from the Cleveland station said. “We might break some records. Temperatures in the upper nineties and ninety percent humidity, Remember, don’t mow your lawn until after sundown. There’s an Ozone alert—”

I clicked off the screen.