Chapter 2
two
Grant leaves his laptop in the spare bedroom-slash-office because men like my husband believe passwords are only necessary when someone else has something to hide.
He calls the room our office whenever someone visits, even though the only things he keeps here are a leather chair, six business books he has never opened, and framed photographs of himself shaking hands with people far richer than us.
I keep everything else organized.
Mortgage statements. Insurance policies.
School calendars.
Tax records.
Birth certificates.
The password life Grant asks me for every time Netflix logs him out.
Our entire life fits inside two filing cabinets and a desk he chose because he liked the word executive.
It’s Saturday morning.
Grant is outside pretending to clean the garage.
I know he is pretending because I hear sports people arguing over last night’s wild ending to the game that blasts through the open door and because cleaning usually involves removing something.
Grant has been in the garage for forty minutes.
Nothing has moved.
Our son, Miles, is upstairs building a city out of cardboard boxes. Our daughter, Ava, is at dance rehearsal. I have exactly fifty-three minutes before I need to leave and retrieve her.
Fifty-three minutes to check on the mortgage, check the credit card, order groceries, schedule Miles’s dentist appointment, and figure out why our electric bill is ninety dollars higher than last month.
Grant’s laptop sits open on the corner of the desk.
Mine is charging upstairs.
I use his.
This is not supposed to be snooping.
This is supposed to be marriage.
I know the password because I created it after he forgot the previous one and locked himself out fifteen minutes before a presentation.
The screen wakes before I touch the keyboard.
A message appears in the upper left corner.
Sienna Cole: I’m still thinking about last night.
I stop.
The notification then quickly disappears.
For one stupid second, I consider the possibility that Sienna is talking about a business meeting.
Maybe they closed a deal.
Maybe Grant gave an incredible presentation.
Maybe she is still thinking about the way he explained projected revenue.
Then another message appears.
Sienna Cole: You left marks.
The electric bill slides from my hand, landing face down on the carpet.
I know Sienna.
Not well.
She works with Grant.
Twenty-nine, maybe thirty. Long dark hair. Smooth skin. A body that has never carried a seven-pound baby directly on its bladder.
I met her at the company Christmas party.
She wore a green dress with an open neck and touched Grant’s arm every time he said something that was not funny.
I noticed.
Then I hated myself for noticing.
Women are taught to distrust their instincts before we are taught to distrust men.
We call ourselves insecure.
Jealous.
Paranoid.
We apologize before anyone accuses us.
The message vanishes.
I should close the laptop.
I do not.
At the bottom of the screen, it’s showing three messages. Three notifications.
I move the cursor, let my finger do its work, and see the third message.
Sienna Cole: My shoulder is going to bruise.
Now my stomach tightens.
Last night…
While Brooke was supposedly terrified
While Grant was supposedly protecting my best friend from her drunken ex.
He was leaving marks on Sienna Cole.
The garage erupts with cheering.
Grant shouts at the television like the men talking about sports can hear him through the screen and hundreds or thousands of miles away.
My hand moves to the trackpad.
Stops.
I do not need to do this.
I do not need to scroll through photographs, hotel plans, or whatever private jokes they have built using pieces stolen from my life.
I know enough.
Then a message from Grant appears.
That means he’s on his phone, responding to Sienna, right now.
Prove it.
I stare at the words.
Three dots appear.
Disappear.
Appear again.
Sienna is typing.
My heart begins beating harder.
Not faster.
Harder.
Each strike lands directly behind my ribs.
A small preview box appears.
The top of the photograph loads slowly.
Dark hair. Bare skin.
A black strap slipping from one shoulder.
I close the laptop.
The sound cuts through the room.
Sharpe. Final.
I sit very still.
In the garage, Grant laughs.
He sounds happy.
That is what hurts first.
Not the photograph.
Not Sienna’s shoulder.
Not even the fact that my husband spent last night touching another woman while I sat at the kitchen table paying for the house he came home to.
He sounds happy.
Lighter than he has sounded with me in months.
I press both palms against the desk.
The wood is cool beneath them.
I breathe through my nose.
Once. Twice.
The room does not change.
The mortgage is still due.
Ava still needs to be picked up.
Miles still needs a dentist appointment.
The electric company does not care that my husband is cheating on me.
Neither does the refrigerator, which has started making a clicking sound Grant keeps promising to investigate.
Life is cruel that way.
The world does not pause when yours splits open.
It expects dinner by six.
The door between the garage and house opens.
I pick up the electric bill.
Grant was past the office carrying an empty beer can.
It’s ten forty-three in the morning.
He backs up when he sees me.
“Using my computer?”
The question is casual.
His eyes are not.
“Mine is charging,” I say.
He looks at the closed laptop, then at me. “Everything okay?”
I lift the electric bill. “Ninety dollars higher.”
Relief softens his face. “Kids leave everything on.”
“The kids.”
“Who else?”
I look at my husband thoroughly.
His navy T-shirt stretches across the stomach he complains about while eating chips directly from the bag. His wedding ring flashes when he crushes the beer can.
I used to love his hands.
Broad palms. Long fingers.
A scar near his right thumb from opening a bottle in college because Reid dared him to.
Those hands touched Sienna last night.
Then came home.
Then had the nerve to reach for me later.
And he had the nerve to sigh at me when I rolled away because it was four in the morning and I had no desire to be touched at the moment with my mind racing from what had happened just a couple hours earlier.
His phone buzzes in his pocket and his hand moves too quickly.
“You heading out soon?” Grant asks.
“Dance ends at eleven-thirty.”
“Right.”
He does not remember what time dance ends.
He remembers I will be gone.
Grant walks into the office and goes for his laptop. “I need this.”
“For the garage?” I ask.
“Work emergency,” he smiles.
Everyone in Grant’s life has emergencies.
Brooke. Sienna.
Clients.
Business associates.
The only person never permitted one is me.
“Could you grab beer while you’re out?”
“What?” I ask.
“You said you’re going past the store?”
Our daughter is waiting for me. The mortgage is waiting for me.
His mistress is waiting for him.
And Grant is worried about beer.
“Sure,” I say.
He leans down and kisses my head in an automatic kind of way.
Affection from muscle memory.
“You’re the best,” he whispers.
He leaves and I listen for the garage door to close.
I open my phone and search for Sienna Cole.
Her public profile appears immediately.
There she is beside a swimming pool in a white bikini.
There she is holding a cocktail on a rooftop.
There she is at the company Christmas party in the green dress.
Grant stands behind her.
One hand resting on her waist.
I guess at the time I didn’t notice or just thought it was harmless.
But his touch…
Familiar. Possessive. Practiced.
I save the picture.
I open the calendar on my phone.
Last night is already marked.
brOOKE EMERGENCY
Underneath that, I add two words.
Sienna Cole
Brooke is not sleeping with my husband.
She is doing something colder.
She is helping him sleep with someone else.