The restaurant smelled of garlic, butter, and freshly baked bread, the kind of place that had always felt like “ours.” It was where we’d gone on our first date, where he’d proposed three years later, and now, where we were celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. Candles flickered between us, glasses of red wine glowed in the light, and for a moment, I thought maybe love could be simple again.
The waiter approached with a notepad, smiling warmly. “What will you two be having tonight?”
I was about to order when my husband cut in, smiling confidently. “She’ll have the mushroom risotto.”
My mouth went dry. The mushroom risotto. I hated mushrooms. I had always hated mushrooms. But it wasn’t my dish I recognized—it was hers. The woman I had long suspected, the one whose name had slipped in his sleep once, the one whose perfume I sometimes caught faintly on his shirt. She loved mushroom risotto. She had told me herself at a party years ago, laughing with her glass of wine while my husband listened too closely.
I stared at him, my hands trembling beneath the tablecloth. “No,” I said slowly, my voice trembling. “I’ll order for myself.”
The waiter blinked awkwardly, scribbling as I forced a smile and chose something else. But my husband’s face flushed, his eyes darting away. He knew what he had done. Or maybe he hadn’t meant to reveal it, but it slipped out naturally, the way truth often does when it no longer needs permission.
The rest of the dinner was a blur. He talked about work, about plans for the house, about vacations we might take, but all I could hear was the echo of that order: She’ll have the mushroom risotto.
When the dessert came—our favorite crème brûlée, cracked open with a spoon we once fought over playfully—I didn’t taste sweetness. I tasted betrayal, coated in caramelized sugar.
Later that night, when we returned home, I confronted him. “Why did you order that?” I asked, my voice breaking.
He froze, his tie half undone. “What do you mean?”
“The risotto. You know I hate mushrooms.”
He swallowed hard, his silence confirming what I already knew. Finally, he whispered, “It was a mistake.”
But it wasn’t a mistake. It was a memory. His memory of her, slipping into my life where it didn’t belong.
I slept in the guest room that night, staring at the ceiling, wondering how many other anniversaries had been shared with her in ways I couldn’t see.
Final Thought
Anniversaries are meant to honor the bond between two people, but mine revealed the presence of a third. Betrayal doesn’t always come in confessions or scandals—it can slip out in the smallest gestures, like ordering the wrong dish. That night, I learned that love can be spoiled by flavors you never asked for, and sometimes the bitterest taste lingers long after the plates are cleared.
