Ethan couldn’t look at me.
“Last week. While David was away.”
I remembered that afternoon.
Ethan had told me Vanessa needed help with an urgent errand.
He’d been gone almost six hours.
I had collected Noah from school, brought him home, and helped him prepare for a spelling test while his father was supposedly helping his mother.
“Was Noah with me that day?” I asked.
Ethan nodded.
I looked toward Vanessa.
She was crying openly now.
“You asked me to pick up your son so you could spend the afternoon with my husband.”
She shook her head.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“But it did.”
“Yes.”
David walked to the window.
He stood there for a while without speaking.
Then he asked Vanessa, “Where?”
She looked toward Ethan.
“Don’t,” David said quietly. “Don’t ask him to answer for you.”
“At our house,” she whispered.
David turned around.
“Our house?”
He stared at her.
“You were sleeping with your ex-husband in our home while I was away working?”
She began crying harder.
David sat back down.
I thought he might shout.
Instead, he took off his wedding ring and placed it carefully on the desk in front of him.
He didn’t announce that the marriage was over.
