“Why?”
He frowned like I had asked an obvious question.
“Because he throws it away by the corner anyway.”
I put down the knife.
“What?”
“Our school bus stopped there yesterday.”
Jamie leaned against the counter.
“I saw Dad leave your food next to the trash.”
My stomach tightened.
Then he added casually,
“And he changed into his wedding suit and got into a lady’s car.”
I stared at him.
“Jamie, go get dressed for school.”
He shrugged.
“Okay.”
And walked away.
I stood alone in the kitchen.
The sandwich was half finished.
The thermos was sitting beside me.
And suddenly, twelve years of ordinary mornings no longer made sense.
Still, I finished packing the lunch.
Two sandwiches.
Apple slices.
Coffee.
And the note.
I wrote it exactly as I always did.
Folded it.
Placed it underneath the napkin.
Then I put the bag on the counter.
Edward came downstairs at 6:50.
He kissed my forehead.
Picked up the lunch.
“I’ll be home around six.”
“Okay.”
Then he left.
I sat at the kitchen table with my coffee long after his truck disappeared.
Twelve years.
Twelve years of empty lunchboxes.
I had always treated them as proof that the food had been eaten.
Now I had no idea what they meant.
And then there was the suit.
Edward owned exactly one suit.
Dark navy.
The same suit he had worn when we married twelve years earlier.
Construction workers don’t have many reasons to own formal clothing, so he wore it to funerals, weddings, and once to Jamie’s school awards ceremony.
That was it.
Why would he secretly change into it on a normal weekday?
And who was the woman?
The obvious answer terrified me.
But something about the situation was so strange that I needed to see it myself before confronting him.
So the following morning, I woke up before Edward.
I got dressed quietly.
Took my car keys.
And waited.
When the kitchen lights came on, I moved my car down the street so he wouldn’t see it.
At 6:51, Edward pulled out of the driveway.
I followed.
For the first twenty minutes, he drove toward the construction site where I believed he worked.
Then he turned onto a residential street a few blocks away.
He pulled over.
I parked roughly a hundred yards behind him.
And watched.
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