“Your mother has your old bedroom ready. Apparently, you’ve been telling her how unhappy you are.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Then why does she think you are?”
Jordan set down his mug.
After a long silence, he admitted he’d called Linda several times over the past few months, usually after we’d argued.
He’d complained about how distant we’d become while we were both working long hours.
“And you told her I was making you miserable?”
“I told her we were struggling.”
“Did you ever tell her when we made up? When things were good between us?”
Jordan looked away.
“No.”
“Every time we had a bad day, you gave your mother another reason to believe I was wrong for you. You never told her when things got better.”
“She twisted what I said.”
“She did. But you gave her a version of our marriage I didn’t even know existed.”
I showed him the perfume and repeated Linda’s words.
Jordan stared at the bottle.
“She actually said that?”
“Yes. And yesterday, when I needed you to listen, you just walked away.”
He sat down.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need an apology just because she stole something. I need to know whether you’re on my side when I’m not in the room.”
That afternoon, Jordan asked his parents to come over.
Linda arrived smiling.
Then she saw my perfume on the table and her smile vanished.
Richard stood beside her.
“Mom,” Jordan said, “why did you take my wife’s belongings?”
Linda folded her arms.
“I didn’t take anything. She must have left them at our house.”
