I thought I knew every part of the life Ethan and I had built together after seven years of marriage. It took one ordinary accident in our bedroom to make me wonder how much of it I had never really known.
Ethan and I had been married for seven quiet, easy years. The kind of relationship so peaceful that people ask how we do it.
My husband was the type of man who brought me coffee in bed every Sunday. He never forgot a birthday, an anniversary, the day I got my promotion, or any other important milestone.
Ethan even left cute little handwritten love notes stuck to the bathroom mirror.
“You looked beautiful in your sleep.”
“Don’t forget lunch.”
“Proud of you, always.”
He never forgot a birthday.
Our friends had a running joke that we were the couple who ruined dating for everyone else. Marion, my boss, used to raise her wine glass at office parties and say,
“If Clarissa and Ethan ever split, I’m done believing in love.”
I laughed every time. I believed her, too, because we’d built a beautiful, comfortable life together. He was my rock and my confidant.
I believed her, too.
That evening, we were getting ready for one of Marion’s formal dinner parties at her house. She hosted twice a year, and the invitations were the kind you didn’t miss.
I was standing at the vanity, fastening my second gold earring, when Ethan called up the stairs.
“You almost ready, Clar? I’m going to pull the car out!”
She hosted twice a year.
“Two minutes,” I called back.
“That’s what you said 10 minutes ago!”
“That’s because I meant it 10 minutes ago!”
I heard him laugh, then the click of the front door.
I turned back to the mirror. My favorite earring slipped out of my fingers.
It hit the floor with a tiny ping and rolled straight into the dark, narrow gap behind our heavy wooden bed frame.
“I meant it 10 minutes ago!”
“No, no, no,” I whispered, dropping to my knees.
I should say something here.
Lately, small things had been off. Nothing I could point to without feeling foolish.
Ethan had started carrying his phone into the bathroom. He flinched a little when the mail landed on the counter.
He’d told our cleaning lady, gently but firmly, not to touch his side of the bed.
I should say something here.
“I organize it a certain way,” he said, smiling. “You know how I am.”
I didn’t, actually. But I’d nodded.
There were the monthly work trips, too. Always to the same small town. Always from Thursday to Sunday.
Also, whenever I asked about his father, whom he never spoke of, he’d give me a soft, “Another time, love.”
Another time never came.
There were the monthly work trips, too.
I’d let it all slide because Ethan was my best friend.
Because I grew up in a house where my own father cheated with a woman none of us knew existed. And I promised myself I would never be that kind of wife.
The one who searched. The one who suspected.
So I didn’t.
My own father cheated
Down on the carpet, I pressed my cheek to the floor and tried to see the earring.
The space under the heavy wooden frame was far too narrow for my hand.
I braced my shoulder against the box spring, lifted the mattress a few inches, and pulled out my phone’s flashlight.
I was smiling, honestly. Half exasperated, half amused, already picturing how I’d tell this story at dinner.
“You’ll never guess where I found my earring. It was around a few stray dust bunnies.”
I braced my shoulder against the box spring.
The bright beam swept across the dark underside of the frame.
I saw the earring, small and glinting near the baseboard.
And taped to the wood, right on the underside of Ethan’s side of the bed, I saw something else. Something tightly wrapped in dark plastic and layered thickly with duct tape.
My smile faded, and I frowned.
I saw something else.
