“Ivy,” Nolan snapped. “Stop making things up.”
His voice cut sharp.
I looked up at him, but he refused to meet my eyes. He was staring at the asphalt like it had done something wrong.
Ivy’s bottom lip started trembling.
“But Daddy,” she whispered, “you said I wasn’t supposed to tell Mommy about the crying money.”
For a long moment, no one moved.
A cart rattled past us. Somewhere nearby, a car alarm chirped.
And my husband, the man who carried groceries in one trip and had never once raised his voice at our daughter, looked as if something inside him had been emptied out.
“Get in the car, Ivy,” he said quietly. “Please.”
She flinched at the word “please.” It was worse than when he snapped. She climbed into her seat without another word, hugging her stuffed rabbit tightly against her chest.
I stood slowly. My knees felt strange, as though they belonged to someone else.
“Nolan.”
“Not here, Maren.”
“Then where?”
“At home. Please.”
I got into the passenger seat because I did not trust myself behind the wheel. The entire drive home, I watched the road lines blur past and tried to make the numbers fit in my head.
A red coat. A red car.
A blonde woman from a company party I had barely remembered until twenty minutes earlier.
Crying money. For my husband, who never cried.
The worst part was not the suspicion. It was that I already knew, in the way wives sometimes know things, that whatever the truth was, it was going to rearrange the furniture of my whole life.
In the rearview mirror, Ivy hummed softly to her rabbit. She had no idea what she had just set in motion.
When we pulled into the driveway, Nolan turned off the engine and sat there with both hands locked around the steering wheel.
“Go play upstairs, sweet pea,” I said to Ivy, forcing brightness into my voice. “Mommy and Daddy need to talk.”
She nodded solemnly and ran inside. We followed a few steps behind her. I waited until she had disappeared upstairs before I followed Nolan into the kitchen.
He went straight to the counter and braced both hands against it, his back turned to me. His shoulders were rising and falling too quickly.
“Look at me,” I said.
He did not turn around.
“Nolan. Look at me.”
He turned slowly. His face was as pale as paper.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“Maren.”
“Who is she? And don’t lie to me. I’ll know.”
