Sometimes when I stopped home in the middle of the day, I’d call my husband to let him know I was running in to get whatever I forgot. I think I was calling so that I could make sure he would have a minute to pop out of his office and say hello, maybe steal a kiss.

I started making a joke in those phone calls. “I’m on my way home,” I’d say. “You know, just in case you need to get your mistress out of the house really quickly.”

ha. ha. ha.

That’s what’s running through my head after I hang up on him, as I drive around the block. After I don’t see her car in the driveway. After I open the garage door and then decide that if they are there with just one car, that feels wrong.

Before hanging up the phone, I screamed at him.

Before I screamed at him, he said, “Well, yes. We’re having coffee.”

Before he said they were having coffee, I said, “Is Heather* there?”

Before I asked if she was there, he had answered the phone in a very strange and different way; A cautious but energetic, “Hello!?!”

And to think, I was just calling to let him know I needed to stop home for a second, maybe steal a kiss.

But the kisses were already stolen, I guess.

*Names are changed, duh.