At 40, I thought I knew my wife very well. We have two kids, a mortgage in Millbrook Heights, and what looked like the perfect suburban life. But lately, something felt off. Teresa had this look in her eyes like she was carrying a secret too heavy for her shoulders.
“Want company?” I’d offer, but she’d already be halfway to the door.
“No, I need… I need some air. Alone.”
And there it was. That word: ALONE. She said it so casually, but every time, it drove in like a blade between my ribs.
My demotion at the insurance company three months ago had turned our world upside down. The pay cut meant Teresa had to pick up extra shifts at the diner, and I could see the exhaustion etched in every line of her face.
But this wasn’t about money. This felt different, personal… and mysterious.
“Dad, where’s Mom going?” my 10-year-old daughter Isabel asked one evening, peering through the kitchen window.
I watched Teresa’s silhouette disappear around the corner. “Just clearing her head, sweetheart.”
But my heart was breaking. Because deep down, I knew something was wrong. The signs were all there — the secretive phone calls, the way she jumped when I entered a room, and how she’d started showering right after these mysterious walks.
“Jason, you’re being paranoid!” I told myself. But paranoia felt safer than facing the truth.
The following Tuesday, I couldn’t take it anymore. Teresa kissed the kids goodnight after dinner, grabbed her jacket, and delivered her usual line:
“Going for my walk. Be back in an hour.”
Five minutes after she left, I followed her down Oakville Street, my heartbeat loud and clumsy in my ears. The autumn air bit at my cheeks, but I barely felt it. All I could focus on was Teresa’s figure ahead of me, walking with purpose, and not the leisurely stroll she’d described.
She kept checking her phone. Was she typing messages? To who? The questions burned in my mind.
Twenty-three minutes. I timed it. Twenty-three minutes of walking through neighborhoods I’d never seen her visit before, until she stopped in front of a tiny cottage with peeling brown paint and a garden overgrown with weeds.
Without hesitation, she walked up the front steps and disappeared inside.
My knees nearly buckled. There it was. The proof I’d been dreading.
“She’s really doing this?” I whispered to the empty street. “She’s cheating on me?”
I stood there for what felt like hours, watching that little house, my mind racing through every scenario. Was it someone from work? A customer from the diner? Did she tell him about our financial struggles? About how I’d failed as a provider? Was she… leaving me?
