Chapter 9
I looked at the man who had pretended to work an entire imaginary shift.
“I don’t know what your word is worth anymore.”
His eyes dropped.
For the first time that night, I cried.
Not loudly.
The tears simply came.
Lucas stood immediately.
I raised my hand.
“Don’t touch me.”
He stopped.
I wiped my cheeks.
“Did you love her?”
“No.”
“Did she think you did?”
“No.”
“Does she know you’re married?”
“Yes.”
Another cut.
“Does she know my name?”
Lucas nodded.
I stared at him.
That one hurt differently.
I had existed inside their secret.
Maybe as an obstacle.
Maybe as a guilt they discussed.
Maybe as the wife who didn’t know.
“How much did you tell her about me?”
“Not much.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“We talked about our lives.”
“Our marriage?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation was devastating.
“What did you tell her?”
“That things had gotten routine.”
I almost couldn’t speak.
“Routine.”
“I didn’t say you were bad.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You told another woman our marriage was routine.”
“I was being stupid.”
“No. You were being intimate.”
He looked at me.
I heard my own voice soften.
“That’s what you don’t understand.”
Lucas’s face crumpled slightly.
“I could survive you having coffee with someone. I could survive you telling me you were confused. I could even survive hearing that you felt something for someone else.”
I pointed toward his phone.
“What I don’t know how to survive is realizing you built a whole fake day just so I wouldn’t know who you were.”
“I’m sorry.”
I nodded slowly.
“I know.”
He looked almost relieved.
Then I finished.
“But sorry doesn’t make tonight yesterday.”
THE THURSDAY HE WAS NEVER AT THE OFFICE
PART 3: THE DAY INSIDE THE LIE
I didn’t sleep that night.
Lucas slept in the guest room.
Or at least he went there.
At 2:17 in the morning I heard the floor creak in the hallway.
At 3:04, the bathroom faucet ran.
At 4:32, I heard him cough.
I lay on my back staring at the ceiling.
Every few minutes another memory rearranged itself.
Three weeks earlier, Lucas had turned his phone facedown when I entered the living room.
At the time I thought nothing of it.
A month earlier, he had begun taking the phone with him when he showered.
I had noticed.
Then dismissed it.
Once, while we were driving, he smiled at a message and when I asked what was funny he said it was something from the office.