Chapter 2: Good Wives Don't Snoop

Good wives don't snoop.

Except I am not snooping.

Snooping implies guilt. Implies I am doing something wrong. What I am doing is gathering information, and there is a difference, even if nobody would believe me if I said it out loud.

It is Thursday morning. Derek left for work forty minutes ago. I called in a half day from the office, told my manager I had a dentist appointment, and sat at the kitchen table with my coffee going cold beside me and my husband's phone records pulled up on my laptop.

Perks of being married to a man who uses the same password for everything. His birthday. October third. Even after two years I cannot decide if that is endearing or just lazy.

I find the number in under ten minutes.

Vivienne Callahan. Saved in his contacts as V. One letter. Cute.

I scroll through the call log and my stomach does something ugly. Twice a week minimum. Sometimes more. The calls are never short. Forty minutes. An hour. Once, on a Wednesday night three weeks ago when Derek told me he fell asleep early and I believed him because why would I not, one hour and forty-seven minutes.

One hour and forty-seven minutes.

I sit with that for a second.

Then I open their texts.

The first few are innocent enough. How are you, how is work, the kind of surface-level catching up that could almost pass as friendship if you squint and tilt your head and decide to be very, very stupid about it.

Then I hit a message from six weeks ago and I stop squinting.

I miss you so much. It's a pity things didn't work out between us.

That is her. I know it is her because Derek's reply comes four minutes later.

Some things just aren't meant to be. Doesn't mean I stopped caring.

Ugh.

I lean back in my chair and press my fingers against my eyes.

Doesn't mean I stopped caring. I am sitting in the kitchen we picked out together, in the house we moved into eight months ago, at the table where we eat dinner every night, and my husband is telling his ex that he never stopped caring about her.

I take a breath. I keep reading.

The messages escalate slowly, the way these things always do. A compliment here. A memory there. The kind of conversation that starts as nostalgia and becomes something else entirely before either party admits what it actually is.

By four weeks ago they are talking every day.

By three weeks ago the texts have shifted to something that makes my jaw tighten.

You always knew exactly how to make me feel good.

That one is Derek.

I stare at it for a long time.

Then I screenshot it. Then I screenshot everything from the past two months, one by one, methodical and unhurried, like a woman who has all the time in the world because she has already decided what she is going to do with this.

The last message in the thread is from yesterday.

Her: I cannot wait to see you next week.

Him: It's been too long. I'll sort the details tonight.

Next week. The Henderson project. Two, maybe three days.

I close the laptop. I pick up my coffee, which is completely cold now, and I drink it anyway because throwing it across the room would be satisfying for approximately three seconds and then I would have to clean it up.

I am not a throw-things woman. Never have been. I am a think-first, move-second, make-sure-you-cannot-be-touched-when-it-lands kind of woman.

My mother raised me that way. She used to say, "Camille, baby, the most powerful thing in any room is the person who does not need to raise their voice."

So I do not raise my voice.

I open F******k instead.

Rhys Callahan.

His profile comes up quickly. The profile is sparse, the way some men's are, no oversharing, no public drama. A few photos. His job listed as something in property development. A city I recognize. Mutual connections: zero.

I study his face.

He looks like a man who does not find a lot of things funny but when he does it is probably worth seeing. Strong jaw. Dark hair cut short. Eyes that are doing something thoughtful even in a casual photo. He is standing beside a car in one picture and something about the way he holds himself tells me he is not someone who gets surprised easily.

Good, I think. Because what I am about to show him is going to be a lot.

I click the friend request button before I can talk myself out of it.

Then I sit back and wait.

My phone vibrates on the table. I glance down.

Derek.

Hey babe, thinking lunch together today? I can leave early.

Oh, the timing. Truly. This man.

I type back: Dentist appointment, remember? Maybe dinner instead.

He sends a heart emoji.

A heart emoji.

I put my phone face down on the table and look out the window at the garden we planted together last spring, the one Derek said would be a project we could do as a couple, the one I mostly did alone because he was always busy, and I think about the word marriage and what it is supposed to mean and what it has apparently meant to my husband this entire time.

My laptop pings.

I flip it open.

Rhys Callahan has accepted my friend request.

And there, already appearing in my message inbox, is a notification.

Rhys Callahan sent you a message.

I click it.

Do I know you?

Four words. Direct. No small talk. No "hey" or "hi there." Just straight to the point.

I like that actually.

I type back: No. But I think your wife knows my husband.

I watch the three dots appear immediately.

Then stop.

Then start again.

Then his reply comes through and I read it twice and something cold settles in my chest because this man already suspects something. I can feel it in four words.

How bad is it?