Twenty-six years.
And now there was a ring I’d never seen, and a hotel room that had been ours, and a woman at a café who said oh, honey like she felt sorry for me.
At four in the morning, I got up and stood at the window. The street was dark and empty. A cat crossed the road under the streetlight.
I made a decision.
Tomorrow, I would find out the truth. All of it. Whatever it cost.
He left for work at six-forty.
“Love you,” he said, kissing my cheek.
I made myself say it back. “Love you too.”
I stood at the front window and watched his truck back out of the driveway. I watched it go down the street. I watched it turn left at the stop sign. I waited until I couldn’t hear the engine anymore.
Then I went to his office.
It wasn’t really an office. It was the small bedroom at the end of the hall, where he kept his desk and his work papers and the old laptop he used for bids and invoices. He never closed the door. I’d been in there a thousand times to vacuum.
