I spent the afternoon trying not to invent explanations.
My mind went to an affair first anyway.
I hated myself for thinking it.
Then I hated him for giving me a reason to.
That evening, Eliam came home at 6:10.
My mind went to an affair first.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” I said.
He put his laptop bag beside the couch.
“Long day.”
I watched him loosen his tie.
“That meeting bad?”
“Which one?”
“That meeting bad?”
“The one from this morning.”
“Oh. Awful.”
He walked into the kitchen.
“My meds?”
“They’re on the counter.”
“Thanks.”
He kissed my cheek.
“My meds?”
I almost confronted him.
Instead, I waited until the next morning.
Eliam left at 7:40.
I followed at 7:45.
I’d never followed my husband anywhere before.
I almost confronted him.
I didn’t enjoy discovering I was capable of it.
I stayed several cars behind and felt ridiculous until he reached the intersection where he normally turned toward his office.
He went straight.
That ended the last possibility that the receptionist had misunderstood something.
He went straight.
Eliam crossed town.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the lot of a low brick building I’d never noticed before.
I parked across the street.
He went inside carrying his laptop.
A few minutes later, the doors opened again.
He pulled into the lot of a low brick building.
Eliam came out with an older man.
I lifted my phone, then nearly dropped it.
“Frank?”
Frank had lived next door when Eliam and I bought our first house.
Eliam came out with an older man.
He and his wife, Marian, were the kind of neighbors who knew which week the recycling went out and brought your packages inside before rain reached them.
Marian had died two years earlier.
Frank sold the house not long afterward and moved closer to his grandson.
Marian had died two years earlier.
I hadn’t seen him since the funeral.
Now he was walking beside my husband carrying a bright green lunchbox covered in cartoon dinosaurs.
Whatever theory I’d constructed about another woman died instantly.
A stranger question replaced it.
Why had Eliam taken a week off work to secretly meet our former neighbor?
I hadn’t seen him since the funeral.
They sat at an outdoor table.
Eliam opened his laptop.
Frank removed a stack of cards from a folder.
I couldn’t hear them.
I could see Frank point at something.
I couldn’t hear them.
Eliam shook his head.
Frank tried again.
Then again.
He seemed irritated.
Eliam didn’t take the card from him.
He simply waited.
He seemed irritated.
Frank eventually tapped one spot and said something.
Eliam smiled.
Frank rolled his eyes.
They went back inside.
I waited several minutes before crossing the street.
Frank eventually tapped one spot and said something.
The sign near the entrance read:
ADULT LEARNING CENTER
Underneath:
READING • WRITING • DIGITAL SKILLS
I stood there with my keys in my hand.
Frank hadn’t been showing Eliam business documents.
I stood there with my keys in my hand.
He’d been trying to read.
That answered one question.
It didn’t answer the one that mattered to me.
Why had my husband needed a fake workweek to help him?
It didn’t answer the one that mattered to me.
