Summer 2020

There’s a voicemail from July. I still have it on my phone.

“It’s 8:06 PM. I stopped at Dunkin… so, it made me a little late. I’ll be home in about, I guess I’m about 4 minutes away-ish. Love you! See you soon! Bye.”

My husband was super busy that summer. So when we went to my parents’ pool for the day, or to a picnic, or just to visit, he always wanted to take two cars so he could go home and get back to work even if the kids wanted to keep swimming, even if I wanted to keep chatting with my folks. Sometimes he left early, sometimes he left just minutes before the kids and I left.

My husband was super helpful with errands that summer. So if we needed pet food or a quick Target pick-up, he would always volunteer.

“It’s 8:06 PM. I stopped at Dunkin… so, it made me a little late. I’ll be home in about, I guess I’m about 4 minutes away-ish. Love you! See you soon! Bye.”

When I listen to the voicemail, it sounds a lot like my old husband who meant the “love you.”

But now I know it wasn’t.

Before he left, I heard a lot of truths. So I know that wasn’t my old husband. But I don’t know exactly why he left the message.

Maybe it was a message from an errand that took him a little longer because he was meeting Heather behind the pet store for a quickie in her van.

Maybe it was a message from a time he left my parents’ house early, raced to Heather’s, snuck quietly into her bedroom, and slipped naked into her bed.

“It’s 8:06 PM. I stopped at Dunkin… so, it made me a little late. I’ll be home in about, I guess I’m about 4 minutes away-ish. Love you! See you soon! Bye.”