Marietta suspected strongly by the end of the week, but had little opportunity to pinpoint any proof.  She spent every spare moment with Henry in the subtle pursuit of slipping him up, jarring the conversation into unexpected turns. ‘Yes’ became a rather indifferent ‘okay’ or ‘alright,’ no matter how many different ways she managed to ask for affirmation. He veered around plurals and possessives as if they were road kill.

“How many balloons are there?” she asked.
“Eight,” said Henry.
“Not seven? It looks to me like there are seven.”
Henry stiffened but didn’t back down. “Huh. I thought I noted one more.”
“You mean you thought you spotted it? Saw it, maybe? Noticed it, even?”
Henry tied the balloons to the chair and turned to face her.
“I didn’t note it,” he said.
And that was the end of that.

Marietta wondered if she was the only one to detect it, or just the only one with the guts to play the game with him. She wondered if he was a better person for it, and delighted herself with the times when he couldn’t cross his way out of it.  
Marrying a man with a lisp wouldn’t be too much of a problem, she thought. There wasn’t an ‘s’ in ‘I do.’