him to expose himself.
There is a difference.
Three days earlier, I had been sitting in my kitchen when everything started.
At least, that was when I thought it started.
The voice note playing from Claire’s phone had filled the room.
“Babe, you left your sports bra in my locker. Tell your sad sack husband you’re working late tomorrow. We need to go over your ground game.”
Then came the chuckle.
Wet.
Private.
Cruel.
I had stared at Claire’s phone beside the fruit bowl.
Fourteen years.
That was a long time to know someone.
Long enough to recognize their footsteps in the hallway.
Their breathing in sleep.
The expression they made before lying.
Claire came downstairs wearing a white robe.
She stopped when she saw the phone in my hand.
For perhaps two seconds, neither of us spoke.
I expected denial.
Instead she sighed.
That hurt more.
Not panic.
Not
guilt.
Annoyance.
As though I had discovered something inconvenient.
“His name is Derek,” she said.
I put the phone down.
She folded her arms.
“He owns Apex Predator.”
“I gathered that.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That quiet thing.”
I looked at her.
“What would you prefer?”
“I don’t know. Yell. Get angry. Act like you actually care.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was absurd.
Fourteen years of marriage, and apparently heartbreak needed to be performed loudly enough to satisfy the person causing it.
“When did it start?”
Claire’s jaw tightened.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Three months ago.”
That was the first lie.
I know because Claire scratched the inside of her wrist when she lied.
She had done it since we met.
She scratched twice.
I noticed.
I noticed everything.
I simply hadn’t wanted to.
“He makes me feel alive,” she said.
There it
was.
The sentence people use when they want desire to sound philosophical.
Claire began pacing.
“You come home from work. You shower. You watch the news. Sometimes you read in the garage. Then you go to bed. We don’t travel. We don’t dance. We don’t do anything spontaneous.”
“I asked you to go to Yellowstone last summer.”
She waved her hand.
“That isn’t the point.”
“You said you didn’t want to waste vacation days.”
“Exactly. You always make everything practical.”
I studied her.
She had once loved that about me.
When the furnace died during our first winter, practical had been reassuring.
When her father needed surgery and insurance refused part of the claim, practical had been useful.
When she lost her job during the pandemic and cried at the dining room table because she thought we would lose the house, practical had paid the mortgage.
But people often rename
