A Stranger Entered Our Bedroom Every Night Until I Learned Why
At noon her phone buzzed while she was folding laundry in the bedroom. She glanced at the screen, walked into the next room, and pulled the door most of the way closed behind her. I heard one sentence before the sounds became indistinct.
Tonight then. After he’s asleep.
I stood in the hallway and felt something drop out of the center of my chest.
I spent the rest of the day performing normalcy so badly that I could feel the performance coming apart at the edges. At dinner, Sonia talked about a spelling test while Elena smiled and passed the bread and asked her questions, and every time I looked at my wife I felt like I was staring at a wall I had been living beside for years without understanding that something enormous was on the other side of it.
Elena asked if I was feeling all right.
I said I was tired.
It was the kind of lie you tell when you do not yet know how much the truth is about to cost.
