Ours was just the truth arriving at the same time.”
He grabbed his coat from the chair where he had thrown it.
“Fine.”
He pointed toward me.
“You want drama? You got it.”
I almost answered.
Then I realized restraint had unsettled him all night because it denied him the fight he needed to make himself feel justified.
So I said only, “Take what you need for tonight.”
He stared at me.
Then he looked toward Madison.
For a moment I thought he would tell her to come with him.
He didn’t.
That hesitation told her everything.
She had walked into my house believing Ethan had chosen her.
Now Ethan had discovered she had lied to him too, and his grand declaration had collapsed into suspicion within minutes.
Madison wiped beneath one eye.
“Ethan?”
He opened the front door.
“I need to think.”
Then he walked out alone.
The door closed.
Madison stood between her husband and me, suddenly belonging nowhere.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I believed she was sorry.
I just wasn’t sure who she was sorry for.
Her husband opened the door next.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” he told her.
She whispered his name, but he shook his head.
“Not tonight.”
He looked at me once before leaving.
“You have my number if you need anything related to this.”
I nodded.
Then he was gone.
Madison and I were alone.
For perhaps ten seconds, neither of us spoke.
The absurdity of it settled around us: two cold dinners, a burning anniversary candle, shattered glass, and my husband’s mistress standing in my living room with nowhere she wanted to go.
Finally I handed her coat to her.
“That’s probably your cue.”
She took it.
At the door, she stopped.
“He told me you two were basically finished.”
I looked at her.
“Did he tell you we still had Thursday nights?”
Her face answered before she did.
“No.”
“Did he tell you I was still setting the table for two?”
She looked away.
“No.”
I opened the door.
“Then maybe both of us knew only the version of Ethan that benefited Ethan.”
She left without another word.
I locked the door behind her.
Then I stood in the silence.
Only forty minutes earlier, I had believed the worst part of my night would be hearing my husband admit he loved another woman.
Instead, I had watched the entire structure of their affair collapse under the weight of information neither of them had bothered to verify.
I blew out the anniversary candle.
