she’d ask.
“Fine,” I’d say. “Fine isn’t an answer,” she’d shoot back. “A little tired.”
“That’s not an answer either,” she’d say. I’d laugh. Then I’d tell the truth in pieces, as best I could.
About the exhaustion. About David staying later and later at work and asking less and less how my day had gone. About how sometimes I caught myself realizing I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done anything just for myself. “Leave him,” Irene would say.
“Irene, we have a child,” I’d answer. “And? Is that a reason to stay with a man who doesn’t even look at you anymore?”
“He looks at me,” I’d say, trying to defend him. “Kate,” she’d sigh. “I don’t know,” I’d say honestly. “I really don’t know.”
“Maybe I’m just tired and making too much of things,” I’d add. Irene would go quiet for a second. Then she’d say, “You’re not making too much of it, Kate.”
“You’re minimizing it. That’s different,” she’d say. I never knew what to say back. I’d hang up.
Sit in the dark kitchen. Then go to bed. I didn’t notice the odd things with the tablet right away.
Harold used it every day. That was good. That was progress.
I was glad. He typed slowly, but each week a little faster. Sometimes he asked me for help: find an article, check the weather.
Sometimes he just read. That too was good. That too was life.
But one day I walked into his room unexpectedly. He hadn’t heard me coming. Ethan was making noise in the hallway.
And I saw Harold switch the screen fast. As fast as his hand allowed. He was closing something.
When he looked up and saw me, his face was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm people wear when they’ve had just enough time to compose themselves.
I pretended not to notice. Set down his pills. Asked how he was feeling.
He answered with the usual signal. Slow eye close: fine. The next time I came in unexpectedly, I saw it again.
And that time I caught a glimpse of what looked like a message thread. Not email, not social media.
Something else. Maybe a messaging app. He was corresponding with someone.
I didn’t ask. He was an adult. Privacy matters.
Not just legally. Basic respect. But I thought about it. Who could he be messaging in a way that made him hide the screen?
His sons? No. He answered them in front of me without any secrecy.
So someone else. Once he looked up, caught my eye, and there was something like apology in his face. That was what stopped me.
Not fear. That quiet apology. As if he were saying, I don’t want to alarm you. It’s just not time yet. David started coming home later.
At first once a week. Then more often. Then almost every day.
A new smell appeared in October. Slightly sour, unfamiliar. It clung to his collar. I noticed it while hanging up his jacket.
One time he answered his phone in the bathroom. Took it in there with him, shut the door. Through the wall I couldn’t hear words, only the tone: low, quick, almost whispering.
He came out flushed. Said, “Kevin called.” I nodded.
In November I asked him directly. We were standing in the kitchen, he was drinking coffee before work, Ethan was still asleep. I asked calmly, without buildup: “David, is there someone else?”
He set down his mug. Looked at me. Then exploded.
Fast, loud, the way people do when they’ve been caught off guard and need to attack so they don’t have to defend. “What kind of question is that? Do you hear yourself?”
“I come home and instead of a normal conversation, I get this? You’re exhausted, you’re stressed, you’re seeing problems everywhere. Great way to start the day, thanks.”
I said nothing. “Kate, you’re being paranoid,” he said more quietly now, cooling off. “Everything’s fine. I’m just overloaded at work.”
I nodded. He left. I stood there looking at the coffee he hadn’t finished.
Then I poured it down the sink. Went to wake Ethan. In December Irene sent me a message.
No warning, just a screenshot. A social media page. A woman named Victoria Larson, thirty years old, engineering firm “Metro Design.”
The same firm where David worked. On the main page was a photo. Restaurant, candlelight, all very tasteful.
David and this woman at a small table. He was saying something, and she was looking at him laughing. She’d taken the photo herself, arm stretched out…
