“And you never once looked at the lid?”

“Why would I inspect the lid?”

“Because there are two enormous words written across it!”

“I was carrying lasagna, Kelly. I wasn’t examining the container.”

I almost laughed.

Almost.

“Who calls Dave Daddy?”

Ryan finally seemed to understand exactly where my imagination had gone.

“Ava. Their youngest daughter. She’s three.”

I said nothing.

“Michelle labels Dave’s lunches because Ava likes helping hand them to him before work. There were containers saying things like ‘Daddy Monday’ and ‘Daddy Tuesday.’ That tray must have been for him too.”

Then I remembered the other detail.

“Why is there already a piece missing?”

Ryan looked down.

“I ate it.”

I stared at him.

Apparently, during the twelve-minute drive home, he had become hungry, opened the very lasagna he had specifically requested for me, and eaten one portion in the car.

“It smelled really good,” he said.

Of course it did.

One by one, every piece of evidence I had spent the entire day analyzing was turning embarrassingly ordinary.

Ryan looked at me.

“Kel, Michelle gave it to me. Call her.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Call her.”

“I said I believe you.”

“Please call her anyway, because you’ve clearly spent the entire day convincing yourself I secretly have another family somewhere, and I’d rather you hear Michelle laugh at me than spend tonight wondering whether I’m lying.”

That irritated me mostly because he was completely right.

I picked up my phone.

Michelle answered almost immediately.

“Hi, Kelly.”

“Can I ask you something strange?”

Ryan covered his face.

“Did you give my husband a lasagna last night?”

There was a brief pause.

Then Michelle burst out laughing.

“Oh, Kelly. Please don’t tell me he never looked at the lid.”

I looked at Ryan.

“No. Apparently he still hadn’t noticed it.”

She laughed even harder.

“I forgot Ava had written on that one until after Ryan left.”

Then Michelle confirmed everything.

The lasagna had originally been intended for Dave’s lunches.

Ava had watched Michelle label all his containers and insisted that the large baking dish needed Daddy’s name too.

Then Ryan had spotted it.

“He asked for that lasagna like he was requesting one of my kidneys,” Michelle said. “He kept talking about how you’d been home alone with all three kids while he was out watching football and drinking.”

I glanced across the table.

Ryan was staring at the floor.

“He wanted to bring you something,” Michelle continued. “I offered him a few pieces in another container, but he said he hoped there might be enough for you and the children the next day. So I just gave him the entire thing.”

She added one condition.

“He has to bring my baking dish back.”

“So romantic,” I said.

“I thought so.”

When the call ended, Ryan and I sat silently for a few seconds.

Then he pulled out the chair opposite me.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For accidentally making you believe I have an entire secret family.”

I started laughing despite myself.

Ryan’s mouth twitched.

“I should have just brought you a bag of chips.”

That broke me.