Speaker 1: When I walked in, I could hear my own footsteps
Speaker 1: on the entry retile, the kind of hollow echo unovtice
Speaker 1: before anything has actually gone wrong. OLIVI was in the
Speaker 1: living room, perched on the edge of the blue checked
Speaker 1: arm chair we picked out to get her last year,
Speaker 1: the one she always called the conversation chair. She looked
Speaker 1: as if she was waiting for news, except the news
Speaker 1: was her own hair pulled back, no strand out of place,
Speaker 1: subtle gold hoops at her ears, her favorite emerald blouse
Speaker 1: and dark jeans and outfits she wore when she wanted
Speaker 1: to look sharp, but not like she tried. She didn't
Speaker 1: look up when I came in, just stared at her phone,
Speaker 1: thumb moving and restless, almost panicky circles. Hey, I said,
Speaker 1: setting my messenger bag by the coat wreck you getting
Speaker 1: ready for the mixer. She didn't answer at first, just
Speaker 1: kept swiping screen, light flickering on her cheek. The silence
Speaker 1: was longer than it should have been. When she finally
Speaker 1: glanced up, her skin was drawn tight at her eyes,
Speaker 1: the kind of look she gets when she's been thinking
Speaker 1: something to death. I actually I was going to skip
Speaker 1: this year, she said, her voice was casual, but you
Speaker 1: could hear her trembling. I just feel drained, too many people,
Speaker 1: too much more talk. I think I need a night in.
Speaker 1: That caught me off guard. The neighborhood association mixer. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just an obligation for us. It had always been
Speaker 1: this wordly zickerd ritual every May, the first one week
Speaker 1: after the Lilac bloom, every one on our block convened
Speaker 1: in the city park with folding chairs and cheap wine.
Speaker 1: We'd always gone together. It was a joke that we
Speaker 1: were the couple who set up early. I glanced at
Speaker 1: the clock. You sure it's our thing? Olivia's it's pressed
Speaker 1: into a flat and smile as flickering right back to
Speaker 1: her phone. I know, I know, I just can tonight.
Speaker 1: Maybe you should go without me, or we could just
Speaker 1: take a year off. I mean, we're allowed to do
Speaker 1: our own thing, aren't we. It didn't sound like her
Speaker 1: the way she kept one hand tightening on the phone,
Speaker 1: shifting it from poon to palm, almost like she was worried.
Speaker 1: I'd look over her shoulder. If you really just need
Speaker 1: some quiet, I said, keeping my voice neutral. We can
Speaker 1: order in and skip the mingle in. No rules about that.
Speaker 1: She shook her head, standing to tuck her feet under
Speaker 1: her I need you to go, honestly, I just need
Speaker 1: to be alone for a bit to night. Ethan. There
Speaker 1: was a plea in her eyes, half hope, half defiance.
Speaker 1: It's not about us, really accept it kind of us.
Speaker 1: I knew her too well, the woman who'd organize our
Speaker 1: community trash pick ups for fun. The woman who, even
Speaker 1: bone tired, would never let me show up solo at
Speaker 1: these things. She always said neighbors read into invitations. But
Speaker 1: this time, whatever was happening, I could see she genuinely
Speaker 1: didn't want to fight. There were lines on her forehead
Speaker 1: adjitter to her posture. She looked almost cornered. I set
Speaker 1: my voice to gentle. All right, if you need so
Speaker 1: low time you have it. I might just make an appearance,
Speaker 1: then come home and tell you all the best gossip.
Speaker 1: She smiled, weak and grateful. Text me if you need
Speaker 1: me o K. She squeezed my hand when I passed,
Speaker 1: then light a drop to her lap. I'm already tilting
Speaker 1: her phone away from my line of sight. I nod
Speaker 1: of worry twisted in my stomach when I tried to
Speaker 1: rationalize away. She pulled more long nights at work. Lately,
Speaker 1: some new consultant gig her firm had picked up, and
Speaker 1: I'd seen her come home so wipe she could barely
Speaker 1: fallen sentences. Maybe she needed a knight to herself. Maybe
Speaker 1: I was projecting, making a big deal out of nothing.
Speaker 1: But our routines had always been more than routines. They
Speaker 1: were how we'd find home map security. I couldn't help feeling,
Speaker 1: as I walked out on to a bright, carefully landscape
Speaker 1: porch alone, that she was closing the door on something
Speaker 1: more than just an evening. I could hear the faint
Speaker 1: scratch of her water inkin as I left, the soft
Speaker 1: tink of her nails on the metal spout, the sound
Speaker 1: of her restoring order to her little leuplanters. I almost
Speaker 1: turned back the way. I had enough first months in
Speaker 1: this house. But she didn't come out to call me,
Speaker 1: and I didn't make her ask. I walked alone down
Speaker 1: to the park, trying to convince myself this was just
Speaker 1: married Chinneppe, not no men. I'd the mixer. Everyone, notice,
Speaker 1: where's Olivia? Malla from next door asked, before I'd even
Speaker 1: managed to set up a chair. You two aren't sick.
Speaker 1: Are you some one else? S chirped about Olivia's legendary
Speaker 1: cheese platters. I'd offered excuses, over worked allergies, just needed
Speaker 1: a brick, but I could see people filing the audity away.
Speaker 1: The conversation washed over me, friendly, familiar, empty. Ordinarily, Olivia
Speaker 1: and I would poke fun at the real estate drama,
Speaker 1: speculate about the neighbor's renovations. Alone, I just felt exposed.
Speaker 1: After an hour, feigning a headache, I slipped home. The
Speaker 1: house was quiet, the porch lightsed him Inside. Olivia had
Speaker 1: left a mug in the sink and her phone abandoned
Speaker 1: upside down on the arm of the sofa. The TV
Speaker 1: was paused on a cooking show. Her slipers kicked carelessly aside.
Speaker 1: She barely looked up from the book in her lap
Speaker 1: when I came in, her tone cheerful, a little forced run.
Speaker 1: I kissed her on the head, trying to ignore the odd,
Speaker 1: humming sense that something foundational had shifted over so slightly
Speaker 1: between us, that first fragile crack in our habits. The
Speaker 1: surprise and tension of it kept me up much later
Speaker 1: than I cared to admit. The whites of the wools,
Speaker 1: suddenly unfamiliar in the blue night time shadows, lying awake
Speaker 1: a cattle of all the times I counted on our
Speaker 1: mutual certainty. Early in our relationship, we built rhythms like scaffolding,
Speaker 1: the way Olivia would lace her fingers through mine each
Speaker 1: Sunday as we strolled the neighborhood, or our tradition of
Speaker 1: critiquing new architecture together, jotting notes in little moleskin journals
Speaker 1: about roof angles and slight lines. Only we cared about
Speaker 1: our story began on an architecture walking to her in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, both of us, fidgety single professionals are correcting
Speaker 1: a guide's mis statement about Frank Lloydwright with the same
Speaker 1: bold certainty she used to order dinner. She loved the
Speaker 1: bold lines of nineteen thirty buildings, and I was fascinated
Speaker 1: by how old fassades met city streets. By our third date,
Speaker 1: she invited me to critique the city's latest in for
Speaker 1: project on the river together. I remember sitting with Olivia
Speaker 1: on a low wall, eating takeout salads, debating whether the
Speaker 1: new pedestrian bridges arches honored the industrial history or were
Speaker 1: just a cheap imitation we'd been inseparable. After that, she
Speaker 1: radiated the hunger for change, ambitious, warm in a crowd,
Speaker 1: able to turn a room with her confidence. At the time,
Speaker 1: I was steadier, quieter, happy to support from the background.
Speaker 1: My job of freelance architectural illustrator let me pick up
Speaker 1: projects and foot alongside Olivia's dead lines, always available for
Speaker 1: her moments of stress or celebration. Even before the wedding,
Speaker 1: we shared a vision for our lives. Build a place together,
Speaker 1: host friends, belonged to a community, even the small routines intentional.
Speaker 1: Our home became our mutual obsession of run down colonial revival,
Speaker 1: with sacking floors and overgrown shrubes. For three years, we'd
Speaker 1: poured ourselves into its, scouring salvage yards for fixtures, laying
Speaker 1: new talsai by side until midnight, learning which arguments were
Speaker 1: worth finishing and which could be let go. On weekends,
Speaker 1: we'd get coffee from the tiny Fae Tuo streets over,
Speaker 1: sitting on the front porch with blueprints or seed packets,
Speaker 1: mapping out what came next. When she landed the job
Speaker 1: at a prominent design firm, I pivoted slowly from full
Speaker 1: time contracts to more freelance work, partly so I could
Speaker 1: ank us while her hours bite into star rows. At first,
Speaker 1: it was accelerating her passion for community involvement, my pride
Speaker 1: in her successes. But over the last year, Olivia's colenda
Speaker 1: had become impossibly crowded, community meetings, professional mixers, out of
Speaker 1: town site visits. Her weekends were increasingly spoken for. I
Speaker 1: tried to be steady, always ready with coffee or inventing
Speaker 1: session after rough days, telling myself we could trade off
Speaker 1: rolls for a while. But sometimes I wondered it was
Speaker 1: I resenting her growing ambition, or just missing the way
Speaker 1: things had been when our partnership was more collaboration than
Speaker 1: support system. But then when I think of those first
Speaker 1: years for spontaneous laughter in the time she'd call me
Speaker 1: her nor star, I would swallow the depths we'd weathered
Speaker 1: rougher patches, like when Olivia's mid rice house in proposal
Speaker 1: tanked after months of EF That period had nearly broken her,
Speaker 1: but we navigated at me listening her fighting to stay open.
Speaker 1: Both of us committed to the idea that neither of
Speaker 1: us was the project, but both of us could be
Speaker 1: part of the solution. Our story. I kept telling myself
Speaker 1: was built on the solid foundation of two people who
Speaker 1: face changed together. I let myself believe that for a
Speaker 1: while longer. The day after the mixer, Olivia returned home late,
Speaker 1: shoes tusty, and hair when tangled, cheeks flushed in a
Speaker 1: way associated with big client winds. I was standing by
Speaker 1: the kitchen window, prepping vegetables for salad, and I watched
Speaker 1: as she drifted up the driveway, head bowed over her phone.
Speaker 1: When Olivi came in, she placed her tote on the
Speaker 1: dining table and didn't make my contact for a moment.
Speaker 1: Todd for her, Hey love, I called good walk. She hesitated,
Speaker 1: tucking her hair behind both ears. Yeah, just needed to
Speaker 1: clear my head. Walked along the river, nothing special, just
Speaker 1: some alone time. She avoided looking at me, grabbing a
Speaker 1: glass of water and holding it like a shield. I
Speaker 1: tried to make it light. I saw you at your phone,
Speaker 1: glue to your palm. Anything interesting? A pause? Olivia shrugged
Speaker 1: emotion that was too brisk, too practiced this podcast text
Speaker 1: you know. She poured a glass of wine, her definite
Speaker 1: move when something bothered her. Later after dinner, she spent
Speaker 1: another hour outside fussing with her garden beds, speaking low
Speaker 1: and hurried on her phone. I tried not to listen,
Speaker 1: but the fragments that reached me a little more than
Speaker 1: work jogging time, mine next steps we can push for Monday,
Speaker 1: somewhere in meat spish and fla of awkwardly guiltily. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was just stress. Olivia arrived best when in constant motion,
Speaker 1: always three steps ahead, but I couldn't shake the subtle shift.
Speaker 1: The concealment didn't fit the normal curtains of our lives.
Speaker 1: Par alone, time had become a fortress. I found myself
Speaker 1: hovering by the window, watching her silhouette, wondering if I'd
Speaker 1: become someone who patrolled his own life for evidence of
Speaker 1: a problem that might not even exist. That Thursday, I
Speaker 1: was sketching in the study when my phone buzzed with
Speaker 1: the calendar notification Urban designed me to p Olivia's invited you.
Speaker 1: I squainted at it. Olivia and I kept a meticulously
Speaker 1: shared calendar for social events, but she never mentioned this one,
Speaker 1: and certainly never invited me. Odd but possible, one of
Speaker 1: those digital accents that happened when you're juggling half a
Speaker 1: dozen apps. Still, curiosity tugged at me. I messaged her,
Speaker 1: did you mean to invite me to this? No response.
Speaker 1: I almost dropped it. Instead, on a whim, I found
Speaker 1: myself walking to the vanyard Trendyico, walking aloft on the
Speaker 1: edge of the redeveloped where her district are not sure
Speaker 1: if they hoped to surprise her or just confirmed nothing
Speaker 1: was amiss. Inside faux industrial lighting, glared off glass tables,
Speaker 1: clusters of architects and planners in dark jacket circle cheap charnay.
Speaker 1: Olivia was there, standing in a small, lively group. She
Speaker 1: didn't see me at first. Her laugh, a bright, high
Speaker 1: pitched peel, carried over the conversation. In the midst of
Speaker 1: the group was a man I hadn't met, late thirties,
Speaker 1: sharp tooline sid that said he cared about cut carter.
Speaker 1: He was the only one holding his own with Olivia,
Speaker 1: trading barbs that had the group and stitches. When Olivia
Speaker 1: turned and saw me, the surprise on her face was unmistakable.
Speaker 1: Her smile faltered for the briefest instant, at which a
Speaker 1: flash of something almost like panic ethan ye made it.
Speaker 1: The invitation in her voice came half beat late. She
Speaker 1: may quick, almost nervous introductions this is my husband Ethan.
Speaker 1: Her hand graized my arm so quickly it was almost
Speaker 1: enough to thought. We worked on the sun Aside project together.
Speaker 1: Her eyes met Carter's for a half second. Something wordless
Speaker 1: passed between them. Carter was charming, bride. He put me
Speaker 1: at ease, even as he unsettled me. Here are the illustrator, right,
Speaker 1: he asked, offering a handshake. Just a shade too enthusiastic.
Speaker 1: Livy tells us you can sketch any skyline from memory.
Speaker 1: That true. I'd never heard her use Livied at work.
Speaker 1: At home. The nickname was reserved for her sister and me.
Speaker 1: I do all right, I said, playing along. Carter grinned,
Speaker 1: she's our idea factory. Do you know she can recite
Speaker 1: the nineteen twelve's owning code by heart? He winked. Olivia
Speaker 1: colored slightly, then batted it away. Please. He just like
Speaker 1: it because I helped get you out of parking tickets.
Speaker 1: The group laughed. But I felt displaced, the way you
Speaker 1: do when you walk in on a conversation that's been
Speaker 1: in spoiling without you for months. Subtle references jokes about
Speaker 1: breakfast meetings, shared grievances about a consultant named Lily. A
Speaker 1: side comment from Cartobell Olivia's impossible coffee ordered of all things.
Speaker 1: I didn't know, couldn't have known. After a while, I
Speaker 1: slipped away, lingering by the snack table, watching Olivia as
Speaker 1: she talked closely with Carter. The shoulders leaned in at
Speaker 1: the same angle when she listened, I had tilted, mirroring
Speaker 1: his posture. Heavit or something more I couldn't decide. By
Speaker 1: the end of the night, Olivia pulled me aside. Hey, sorry,
Speaker 1: that was super last minute. You okay, fine, I said,
Speaker 1: forcing lightness. Then I didn't know you and Carter were
Speaker 1: so close, a weary laugh. He's just a work friend.
Speaker 1: We're leading the riverfront proposal. You know how these things work.
Speaker 1: The way she dismissed it felt rehearsed. I almost pressed further,
Speaker 1: but she was already glancing back to Carter's group. Lips
Speaker 1: tighten what looked like apology or anxiety. I couldn't tell which.
Speaker 1: That night, as we got ready for bed, Olivia's phone
Speaker 1: buzzed with one of those shop alert sounding pans. Usually
Speaker 1: she ignored after our's messages, but this time she picked
Speaker 1: up the phone, reathed the screen, then growld her robe
Speaker 1: and slipped into the hallway. I lay quietly listening to
Speaker 1: her voice so low, urgent murmur through the door. I
Speaker 1: caught a few words, not now, not to night, he's here,
Speaker 1: a pause, sharper tone, tomorrow O K. When she returned,
Speaker 1: I asked, everything okay. She climbed into bed, facing the
Speaker 1: wall work drama. Sorry, I'll tell you if it gets weird.
Speaker 1: Half an hour later, when I went to get a
Speaker 1: glass of water, her laptop was open on the dining table,
Speaker 1: screen on a slack conversation minimized. I recognized her received
Speaker 1: till her joel locked her finger's breast tapping rapidly at
Speaker 1: high level under the covers. I wanted to believe her,
Speaker 1: but none of this was a kind of trouble she'd
Speaker 1: usually keep from me. We'd always been quick to joke
Speaker 1: about late night emergencies, trading rhyesids about architect drama. Now
Speaker 1: it felt like I was being managed from outside the story.
Speaker 1: The next day, Olivia left early for a client meeting.
Speaker 1: After she'd gone, I tidied up, sorting for a stack
Speaker 1: of receipt by the coffee maker. My eye caught one
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize a credit card charge at Vesper and Vine,
Speaker 1: an opscale spot near the water front. It jumped out
Speaker 1: in Condex. We only went there for anniversaries or worked
Speaker 1: schmoozing events, and Olivia hadn't mentioned a client dinner. The
Speaker 1: TI timestamp on the slip was ten forty six p m.
Speaker 1: Late even for business. That night, I tried to bring
Speaker 1: it up without sounding Accusedtory, Hey, did you go to
Speaker 1: Vesper and Vine recently? I found your cards slip in
Speaker 1: the kitchen. Olivia didn't look up from her tablet oh yeah.
Speaker 1: After the Monday meeting, the team did a little wrap
Speaker 1: up Carter's idea. She said it like it was nothing,
Speaker 1: but I remembered she'd come home that Monday night at nine,
Speaker 1: tied hair up, claiming she just stopped for fast food
Speaker 1: on the way in. The timeline didn't fit yet, I
Speaker 1: heard myself say sounds like fun, feeling a hollow thump
Speaker 1: in my test. That weekend was Olivia's sister Becka's birthday brunch.
Speaker 1: Six of us sat crowned around our back patio table,
Speaker 1: passing keishes and bad jokes. Olivia was cheerful, buzzing almost
Speaker 1: Mennick Becker reached over the table, poking Olivia's arm. I swear,
Speaker 1: you've been so hard to pin down these days. Someone's
Speaker 1: keeping you busy. Olivia laughed too loud, cheats, collaring, just work,
Speaker 1: You know how it is. Becka grinned, teasing. You're not
Speaker 1: that obsessed with work. Buz Ethan's competition handsome. Olivia toster
Speaker 1: knakin her sister, but her smile falter. Can we not?
Speaker 1: She doffed for more coffee. The table's chatter moved on,
Speaker 1: but I caught the edge of deflection in her tone.
Speaker 1: Her defensiveness was new. Afterwards, cleaning up, Becka pulled me
Speaker 1: aside while the others chatted in the yard. You two
Speaker 1: are right, lift seams spun tight. She meant it kindly.
Speaker 1: I shrugged. A busy month, that's all but a difference
Speaker 1: he'd had rooted itself. Was I the last person to
Speaker 1: sense what had changed? Or was I inventing disloyalty from confusion?
Speaker 1: For the next week, I watched Olivi drif further into
Speaker 1: her routines, or what I thought were her routines She
Speaker 1: spent I was after work in the garden Herbert's Inn,
Speaker 1: pacing between beds, phone in hand, her conversations were clipped.
Speaker 1: When I appeared more than once. She ended coals the
Speaker 1: moment I stepped outside, just checking blunt dates. She joked,
Speaker 1: but I saw the ware face tensed, her eyes flick down.
Speaker 1: One night, I caught sight of her sitting on the
Speaker 1: cold slate steps, phone pressed into her palm. She was
Speaker 1: smiling faintly that p s poriess if ticking off an
Speaker 1: inside joke. When I said her name, she jumped, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: didn't hear you. She began fussing with the troll she
Speaker 1: hadn't been using, as though busying herself with the earth
Speaker 1: would explain whatever I'd interrupted. I knew I should confront her.
Speaker 1: I rehearsed different approaches, gentle, neutral teasing, but each time
Speaker 1: I lost my nerve. What if I was being controlling?
Speaker 1: What if all of this was just the natural distance
Speaker 1: that comes with too many deadlines and not enough sleep.
Speaker 1: There was history between us, real sturdy history, but even
Speaker 1: trusted I discovered confray under the weight of doubt, especially
Speaker 1: when backed by little half truths. In my more generous moments,
Speaker 1: I told myself I was over compensating for the last
Speaker 1: tough patch in our marriage. The months after her failed
Speaker 1: project when I'd worried I wasn't given enough, being present enough,
Speaker 1: shouldering my share. Maybe this was the natural pendulum swing
Speaker 1: Olivy clawing back's solitude. After months of intense colaborration, her
Speaker 1: firm had landed to high profile redevelopment projects. She was thriving,
Speaker 1: building coalitions, lining up sight visits. I heard the confidence
Speaker 1: in her phone voice, saw the spring in her step.
Speaker 1: Maybe I was jealous in some small, embarrassing way of
Speaker 1: her momentum. Still in private, I told my own memory
Speaker 1: for evidence. I began to keep a mental checklist of
Speaker 1: minor anomalies, sudden random absence as secretive texts, jokes. I
Speaker 1: didn't understand the way important details now seemed to belong
Speaker 1: to some one else's orbit. Some nights after Olivia fell asleep,
Speaker 1: I would stare at our bedrooms, pressed in ciling, weighing
Speaker 1: the risks of pressing her. Did I want to risk
Speaker 1: breaking whatever spell kept as stable? Or was it more
Speaker 1: cowardly to let an unspoken distance widen between us. It
Speaker 1: was during one of these knowing late nights that Olivia
Speaker 1: called next to me, breath warm at my neck, and murmured,
Speaker 1: you quiet lately are you okay? There was sincerity in
Speaker 1: her question, attention underneath. I'd almost told her I was worried. Instead,
Speaker 1: I waited too long, then said, yeah, just juggling deadlines.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of you live. She hugged me, relief sliding
Speaker 1: over her face so quickly she couldn't hide it. I
Speaker 1: wondered briefly if she had the same doubts about me,
Speaker 1: or if we were just both lost in our own
Speaker 1: increasingly separate lives. The following Thursday, a city lights faded outside.
Speaker 1: Amine patted softly in the port t roof. Olivia emerged
Speaker 1: from her home office, face cast in the off white
Speaker 1: blue of her monitor. This time she found me bullsuit,
Speaker 1: cooling in my lap, sketch pad open but untouched. Can
Speaker 1: we talk, she asked, voice low, almost fragile. I set
Speaker 1: aside my pen, of course. She perched on the armass,
Speaker 1: fidgeting with a stray lock of hair. I need to
Speaker 1: tell you something. I know. I've been distant. I've been struggling.
Speaker 1: She looked at me, her eyes glossy but determined. There's
Speaker 1: a lot changing at the firm, Opportunities pressure, I keep
Speaker 1: feeling like a fraud, like they are going to figure
Speaker 1: out and making it all up as I go. Her
Speaker 1: thumb twisted her wedding band. I reached for her hand.
Speaker 1: You're the most capable person I know. You deserve every
Speaker 1: bit of it live. She squeezed my fingers. Thank you.
Speaker 1: But it's more. There's a job offer San Francisco, executive roll,
Speaker 1: big scary shift. I couldn't bear to talk about it
Speaker 1: until it felt real. My anxiety and spoiled. Said Francisco,
Speaker 1: Well that's huge. We'll leave competed with fresh uncertainty. I
Speaker 1: haven't said yes. I haven't even finished the interviews. I
Speaker 1: just I was too afraid to tell you I was
Speaker 1: considering it. Her voice cracked a little. I'm sorry for
Speaker 1: shutting you out. We sat together for a long time.
Speaker 1: I felt guilty for the suspicion, for all the times
Speaker 1: I doubted her motives. She leaned into my shoulder, breathing softly,
Speaker 1: letting her mass drop. We ended up talking late about
Speaker 1: what it would mean to move start again, what we'd miss,
Speaker 1: everything and nothing. Olivia promised to lip me in. I
Speaker 1: promised to support whatever she needed. The days that followed
Speaker 1: felt lighter, almost giddy. Olivia brought me to fright a
Speaker 1: networking event. It was low key. We joked with her colleagues.
Speaker 1: Carter included a harmless, affable force. I made small talk,
Speaker 1: watched Olivia from across the table as she recounted project's stories,
Speaker 1: her eyes crinkling with laughter. She put her hand on
Speaker 1: my knee several times. For the first time in weeks.
Speaker 1: I let myself believe the riff was closing. I all
Speaker 1: but banished my worst fears. But equilibrium never lasts. One night,
Speaker 1: as we were cleaning up after a dinner with friends,
Speaker 1: my phone buzzed. It was a voicemail, strange since most
Speaker 1: people tex snaire. I played it. Olivi's voice soft, full
Speaker 1: of warmth, and something else, something raw. Last night meant everything.
Speaker 1: I haven't felt this elaven years. My world stuttered. Who
Speaker 1: was that meant for? I replayed the message, every nerve
Speaker 1: in my body on fire in eight years. I'd never
Speaker 1: heard a sound quite that way. Vulnerable, young and love,
Speaker 1: but not with me, not lately. I almost confronted her
Speaker 1: right then, but found my throat closing up, my hand shaking.
Speaker 1: The rest of the night, I tried to convince myself
Speaker 1: it was nothing, a joke, a mestyle a weird fragment
Speaker 1: of a friendship, But the knot in my chest only
Speaker 1: pulled tighter. The next morning, over coffee in the porch,
Speaker 1: I watched Olivia moving round the kitchen, her motions practice
Speaker 1: and peaceful, like nothing had happened. My mind's bne did
Speaker 1: I misinterpret? Had it been meant for one of her sisters?
Speaker 1: Or was this the confirmation I had been circling for weeks?
Speaker 1: I found myself in a mental replate of the recent months,
Speaker 1: highlighting every oddity, every departure from routine. Was it delusional
Speaker 1: or soort awake? A few days passed before I worked
Speaker 1: up the courage to bring up a message. I waited
Speaker 1: until after dinner, the house quiet, thus making everything fill
Speaker 1: hushion fragile, liv I said, slicing my voice down to
Speaker 1: the softest register. I got a Ozmaid I think was
Speaker 1: meant for someone else. She sounded a different She stiffened,
Speaker 1: then forced a smile. Oh that God, No, Please tell
Speaker 1: me you didn't take that seriously. I sent it to Allison.
Speaker 1: We were joking about meeting that finally went well. Inside
Speaker 1: joke at work, Mega twisted. The explanation was plausible, maybe
Speaker 1: even likely. Allison was her work confidante, and yet the
Speaker 1: tone of that message lingered in my mind, just sounded personal,
Speaker 1: That's all I said. Olivia shrugged. We're just punchy. You
Speaker 1: know how exhausting things have been lately. If you want,
Speaker 1: I'll put you on copy next time. She laughed, leaning
Speaker 1: into plant a kiss on my cheek, diffusing the tension,
Speaker 1: But behind her an suscients, I saw a flicker of worry.
Speaker 1: Her eyes darted not away from me, but around me,
Speaker 1: like she was searching for detail she'd forgotten to hide.
Speaker 1: The next day, I opened our share calendars, posedly sink
Speaker 1: for transparency and organization. Scrolling through the upcoming week, I
Speaker 1: saw entries for a private follow up, psych consols, Carter
Speaker 1: late check in off, odd our meetings, most scheduled after
Speaker 1: normal business hours, none she discussed. I checked her email
Speaker 1: at joint address we both used for mutual projects, buried
Speaker 1: amid usual city council updates for messages from Carter, subject
Speaker 1: lines in nucuous proposal revisions, A quickly briefed to night
Speaker 1: most readers work, but a few reference to jokes. I
Speaker 1: didn't understand you were me a drink for last night,
Speaker 1: putting our secret sauce on this one. By now doubt
Speaker 1: was more friend than enemy. At presence, I could no
Speaker 1: longer escape. I dug further, scanning her social media looking
Speaker 1: for clues I hoped not to find. Everything was sparser
Speaker 1: than usual, No candid shots of us, no posts about
Speaker 1: recent projects, no location tags for Vesper and by other
Speaker 1: rivers side walks. That evening, Olivia was laid again her
Speaker 1: excuses strategy review meeting with Carter. She came home energized,
Speaker 1: cheeks pink hands, trembling slightly as she recounted the story
Speaker 1: about a city permit finally going through. Her smile was
Speaker 1: too wide, her laughter too brittle. When I offered to
Speaker 1: open a bottle of wine to celebrate, she declined, I
Speaker 1: shouldn't up barely tomorrow, but instead spend half an hour
Speaker 1: sweeping out the karage, humming as of proximity to me was.
Speaker 1: I replayed the facts, lined them up in my head,
Speaker 1: sought out anything that would redeem my trust. But each
Speaker 1: tread led back to Carter, to secret meetings, to the
Speaker 1: blank spaces in Olivia's manner. Even her sister is teasing.
Speaker 1: Someone's keeping her busy now sounded like a warning. I
Speaker 1: tried talking to Alison, Olivia's half proclaimed work wife. I
Speaker 1: suppose we planned a surprise birthday dinner for Olivia, hoping
Speaker 1: to extract a clue she and Carter have been killing
Speaker 1: it lately, Allison said, clearly, impressed Late nights downt on
Speaker 1: sessions all that their chemistry is and real best team
Speaker 1: we've had on a project in years. She grinned, not
Speaker 1: sensing my discomfort. Everyone notices. If I didn't know them,
Speaker 1: i'd think they were dating. I managed to laugh, but
Speaker 1: my chest heightened when I probed further. Late nights you
Speaker 1: mean every week, the Allison looked faintly, amused, pretty much
Speaker 1: every week since February. You'd know a way better than me.
Speaker 1: I just see what's in the office. Honestly, she's lucky
Speaker 1: to have a partner as patient as you. I backed
Speaker 1: out of the conversation, hot pounding, more lost than ever.
Speaker 1: I could hear the cracks deepening the load on our marriage,
Speaker 1: her hum threatening to snap the bean. I started paying
Speaker 1: closer attention to Olivia's gardening. It had always been her
Speaker 1: postterreous ritual hand in the soil have Thunes blaring some
Speaker 1: design podcast lately, though, the gardening had a condestined quality.
Speaker 1: She regularly spent half her evenings outside, regardless of weather.
Speaker 1: Sometimes while passed dark, I watched from the study as
Speaker 1: she buried something near the back fence, a habit I
Speaker 1: choked up to compost he bulps, but the motions were furtive.
Speaker 1: She checked over her shoulder, half dipinion, and out of
Speaker 1: the house with Manila envelopement, sometimes the small note. But
Speaker 1: one moonless night, my worriant spoiled into action. I waited
Speaker 1: until she had gone upstairs with a book, then slipped
Speaker 1: outside to the edge of her flower beds. Kneeling, hands
Speaker 1: cold in the damp soil. I fished around until I
Speaker 1: found what I thought were plant markers, only to discover
Speaker 1: a tiny, folded set of notes pressed flat between garden stones.
Speaker 1: The handwriting was Olivia's, unmistakably, but the words inside were
Speaker 1: not meant for me. I stopped hand frozen mid search.
Speaker 1: As the back porch light flicked on. Olivia's voice drifted
Speaker 1: through the screen ethan. I straightened heart's lemming just checking
Speaker 1: the soka hose looks like it's sleeking. She nodded, watching
Speaker 1: me strangely leave it till morning. O k the plants
Speaker 1: can wait, come to bear inside her shadow trailed mine
Speaker 1: down the hole, never touching, but always just to stare behind.
Speaker 1: That night, I hid the notes in my jacket pocket,
Speaker 1: palm sweating. I didn't open them until hours later, locked
Speaker 1: away in my duck and studio, the lines of her
Speaker 1: careful penmanship shimmering in the moonlight as dune crept over
Speaker 1: the city's cape outside. I realized the answers they'd been
Speaker 1: seeking were here, buried in plain sight, waiting for the
Speaker 1: right line to break under pressure. But still I didn't
Speaker 1: know what I would do with the truth, or what
Speaker 1: if anything could possibly remain and broken. When morning came,
Speaker 1: for a long time, I just sat at my desk,
Speaker 1: the edge of the first note trembling lightly between my fingers.
Speaker 1: I was so wrung out with adrenaline that I had
Speaker 1: to breathe and through my nose and let it back
Speaker 1: out slowly, afraid my hands would tear the paper. My
Speaker 1: mind riffled between explanations, old project brainstorming, self motivation, anything,
Speaker 1: until the words on the page began to resolve themselves
Speaker 1: under my desk lamp. It wasn't obvious poetry, not exactly
Speaker 1: love letters but the intent was clear, because I knew
Speaker 1: olivis in no voice better than I knew my own.
Speaker 1: The first line sometimes when I walk by your desk,
Speaker 1: I forget was supposed to be working. Your laugh straightens
Speaker 1: out the humm in my chest. I read the note twice,
Speaker 1: three times, no salutation, no name, but the context drew
Speaker 1: itself in sharp lines. The words went for me. I
Speaker 1: had never sat at any desk with Olivia in the
Speaker 1: past year. They belonged elsewhere. I paced through the other's
Speaker 1: handsweating a sketch of the coffee boss counter. A note
Speaker 1: about Monday's walker felt so easy. Even the silence was
Speaker 1: a comfort. A short half written apology, Sorry, I built
Speaker 1: Friday things got weird at home, followed by detailed recitation
Speaker 1: of a joke I'd never heard a story about a
Speaker 1: taxi driver with saw some music so loud they couldn't think.
Speaker 1: One ended with next time, let's not say goodbye in
Speaker 1: the stillwell three hearts in her leaping distracted script underlined
Speaker 1: the last line. I pushed the pages away with something
Speaker 1: close to panic, while's shop at the back of my
Speaker 1: throat as sick rational voice tried to reassure me. Maybe
Speaker 1: these were hers, yes, but not reason or they were
Speaker 1: some kind of journaling ritual, A therapy exercised about previous years,
Speaker 1: and memory been unpacked, except I recognized a wine bar
Speaker 1: from the story, so the time line was less than
Speaker 1: a month old. The only thing more damning than the
Speaker 1: details were her disjointed sigatures ell and then once a quicker.
Speaker 1: Eventually I cleaned up the mess I'd made of the earth,
Speaker 1: patting the stone pack to cover my gilt rinse my
Speaker 1: hands mechanically in the kitchen, and crept upstairs as quietly
Speaker 1: as possible. Olivia was already asleep, her breathing even one
Speaker 1: hand culled loosely over the juvilug. She'd never held a
Speaker 1: secret in her life. Sleep eluded me. I lay awake,
Speaker 1: listening to each loax's hail, the faint creak of off laws,
Speaker 1: the hum of the distant city. Every home is sound
Speaker 1: of our middle coastran quality now shot edged an alien.
Speaker 1: An enormous holler had opened up inside my routine, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't even decide how much I wanted to know
Speaker 1: the rest. I didn't ask her about the notes. The
Speaker 1: next morning. Instead, I watched as Olivi Ba's around cheeks, bright,
Speaker 1: pulling on a new linen dress, and humming under her
Speaker 1: breath like nothing could touch her. She stopped by my
Speaker 1: chair pawned my shoulder. I'm at the office till seven.
Speaker 1: Then we've got a team happy hour, don't wait dinner
Speaker 1: on me. Her phone was olverady. He pressed to her
Speaker 1: hip as she kissed the top of my head. I
Speaker 1: tried to measure whether her affection felt real or forced,
Speaker 1: or real precisely because it was forced. Sure, sevenish, have fun.
Speaker 1: I spent the day in an anxious fog, working only
Speaker 1: in the sense of lifeless sketches accumulating in my portfolio.
Speaker 1: By noon, I made a decision. I'd visit her office
Speaker 1: under some pretense, drop off a lucky water bottle, take
Speaker 1: her to coffee, and then I rehearsed the introduction friendly
Speaker 1: and expected the affable husband and from the rain. Except
Speaker 1: when I arrived, Olivia wasn't there. The receptionist blinked at
Speaker 1: me in confusion for a moment before flipping through a
Speaker 1: note bed and saying live left for sight ranch. She
Speaker 1: and Carto grabbed an early lunch. I think said something
Speaker 1: about prepping for the river front brief The familiarity with
Speaker 1: which he used katter made my teeth hurt. Right did
Speaker 1: she mention when she'd be back? He shook his head,
Speaker 1: then smiled like he was used to apologizing for talented.
Speaker 1: We were project leads. I stood outside her building for
Speaker 1: another fifteen minutes, rain prickling down, unable to quite move.
Speaker 1: There was a sleep bax edwan idling across the stree.
Speaker 1: At one point, Carter himself stepped up here, slightly must
Speaker 1: olive coats slung over his forearm. Olivia followed a few
Speaker 1: moments later, head down, clutching her phone, laughing quietly. They
Speaker 1: crossed close together, bodies angled as if talking in cold.
Speaker 1: When Carter's hand brushed Olivia's low back in a casual
Speaker 1: guiding gesture, just for a moment, she didn't flinch or
Speaker 1: pull away. I pressed myself back against the column, goose west,
Speaker 1: covering my arms as they turned a corner and disappeared
Speaker 1: into the crowd. I hated myself then for watching, for
Speaker 1: knowing exactly what I was watching that evening. When Olivia
Speaker 1: finally returned, she looked radiant but weary, his skin flushed
Speaker 1: from wind or wine. Hermooed expansive, sorry, so late she
Speaker 1: called happy hour went long. Carter's idea networking? Ye know
Speaker 1: how it is? Did you already eat? I nodded, barely
Speaker 1: trusting my voice. She was already on her phone, them
Speaker 1: skittering as she climbed the stairs. Is it okay if
Speaker 1: I call it earily? I've got round tomorrow. I stood
Speaker 1: in the kitchen, grew up in the counter, fighting the
Speaker 1: urge to follow her, to ask, tell me the truth,
Speaker 1: all of it. Instead, I will watch the digital clock
Speaker 1: shift upward as it always did, as if time itself
Speaker 1: had become complicit. I barely slept, waiting for some sign
Speaker 1: that would force my hand. On Saturday, we were supposed
Speaker 1: to attend a friend's birthday dinner. Were round to I'll
Speaker 1: livy breeze in from yoga. Hear up jim Bag bouncing mind?
Speaker 1: If a shower first, I think I'll you be straight
Speaker 1: to Lizzie's. I promised Cutter, I'd review some slides before
Speaker 1: the crowd gets there. Something in me shifted. You and
Speaker 1: Carter are pretty joined at the hit these days. She
Speaker 1: was pulling her errings out as reflecting the mirror, not me.
Speaker 1: It's just work, Ethan. That's how projects happen. He always said,
Speaker 1: I do my best with a challenge partner. I pushed
Speaker 1: just a little. I thought I was your challenge partner.
Speaker 1: She stilled, hering half off, don't do that. It's not fair.
Speaker 1: Her voice was brittle, defeated. She disappeared into the shower,
Speaker 1: leaving a door just barely open behind her. Later at dinner,
Speaker 1: the group was lively, but Olivia's stayed at the far end,
Speaker 1: close to Carter, trade inside conversations so fast I couldn't
Speaker 1: catch up. When I caught her eye across the table,
Speaker 1: she smiled faintly, but there was a thinness a distance,
Speaker 1: like she was trying to keep me from seeing the joke.
Speaker 1: I spent most of the night making half hearted conversation
Speaker 1: with people I barely cared about, feeling more like a
Speaker 1: bisonder in my own life than ever before. After midnight,
Speaker 1: she slipped out with Carter and another woman from her firm,
Speaker 1: claiming it was just a ride home. When Olivie returned,
Speaker 1: she jowlted me awake, come into bed, wreeking faintly of
Speaker 1: cigarette smoke, a habit she sworn off except sometimes under stress.
Speaker 1: Did you have fun, I asked, voice raw from waiting
Speaker 1: she hesitated, freezing on the edge of the bed. YEA
Speaker 1: Carter's got this running debate with Lizzie's husband to kept
Speaker 1: us all up way too late. She pulled the covers
Speaker 1: over her, sighing too loudly. Silence built up until I
Speaker 1: almost broke, wanting to ask her whether the notes fit
Speaker 1: into all this, but the words failed me. Instead, I
Speaker 1: lay still, pretending asleep. I didn't feel counting out each
Speaker 1: unsteady breath. By Sunday afternoon, our routines barely held. Olivia
Speaker 1: disappeared into the garden with her phone music pumping so
Speaker 1: loud it was clearly meant to shield her from being approached.
Speaker 1: I hovered inside, aimless, replaying each moment for evidence, half
Speaker 1: hoping to catch her in the act of wart texting Carter,
Speaker 1: planning her escape, wanting absurdly for her to hand me
Speaker 1: the truth so I wouldn't have to demand it. In desperation,
Speaker 1: I found myself at a loss for any course of
Speaker 1: action that didn't feel desperate, shameful, or cruel. Late that night,
Speaker 1: I stepped out to take out the recycling under the
Speaker 1: pretense of kneading air. The scent of Lili's rose up
Speaker 1: sharp and overwhelming. Under one planter, I found another note,
Speaker 1: this one newer, written histily, and Olivia's lesser, more frantic,
Speaker 1: hanned sorry about the storm. Couldn't wait to talk alone.
Speaker 1: You make the ugly days almost bearable. Let's figure out Tuesday.
Speaker 1: See my throat closed. The note was signed to see,
Speaker 1: not Olivier Carter Scroull Messer letters running together. I had
Speaker 1: never seen his handwriting, but the familiarity in the tone
Speaker 1: the nickname left no room for denial. They were writing
Speaker 1: actual notes, passing them by hand, hiding them. Were only
Speaker 1: the other would not to look. The secrecy was woven
Speaker 1: into the ritual itself. I pocketed the page, feeling heat
Speaker 1: prickleed behind my eyes. If I was searching for any
Speaker 1: remaining explanation that could keep me from collapse, it was gone.
Speaker 1: I didn't comfort her that night. I try voice. I
Speaker 1: even walked down the hallway to the spare room, where
Speaker 1: she culled over her laptop. Heavun's on eyes glistening in
Speaker 1: blue light, I have heard in the doorway. She never turned,
Speaker 1: not once though I think she since I was there.
Speaker 1: I gave up and went to lie down, waiting for
Speaker 1: the courage to pry all life opened like a rotenbeam
Speaker 1: and count the termites. The next morning, Olivia played the
Speaker 1: script beautifully. Coffee on the porch, and now I'm talked
Speaker 1: in the crook of mine casual questions about my deadlines.
Speaker 1: If I wasn't so exhausted, I'd have admired her technique.
Speaker 1: When her phone buzzed yet again with the notification confidential
Speaker 1: sight dee berief sevenpen Carter, she clicked the screen face down.
Speaker 1: I suddenly tired. Big week, I asked, feigning normal. She nodded,
Speaker 1: can't wait for next quarter? She smiled, too bruttle. Promise,
Speaker 1: we'll take that road trip after this settles. The promise
Speaker 1: was old. I nodded, then, excuse myself, stomach twisting. Before
Speaker 1: I left, I called Allison, Olivia's work friend. Hey, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of pulling off a surprise for Olivie's birthday. What's
Speaker 1: your schedule like this week? I kept my voice as
Speaker 1: friendly as possible. Oh, she loved that she's barely in
Speaker 1: so much with this proposal. Carter and she are basically
Speaker 1: living at the office, she laughed. Honestly, abosjuks there like
Speaker 1: an unstoppable tag team. I can barely fit in meetings
Speaker 1: with how lately, unless Carter's there, I tag team huh,
Speaker 1: a phrase that may by all rise in my throat. Honestly,
Speaker 1: Allison went on, I think half the office wonders if
Speaker 1: they sleep under their desks. I mean, ye know, those
Speaker 1: roomors fly. Not that I'd ever. She trailed off, embarrassed,
Speaker 1: but the implication was enough. No worries are forced to laugh.
Speaker 1: Thanks Ali, I'll try to pick a day when she's
Speaker 1: not shuttling between projects. The conversation was over, but my
Speaker 1: mind wasn't. The knowledge was too sharp, cutting through every
Speaker 1: remaining hope I'd had that this was just work. If
Speaker 1: anyone else in Olivia's circlenew if the chemistry was that
Speaker 1: obvious to people outside our marriage, how many warned her
Speaker 1: were intentionally looked away. Later that week, as the last
Speaker 1: fragments of sunlight drained out of the city, I waited
Speaker 1: in the kitchen, just listening. Olivia was on one of
Speaker 1: her endless project called pacing the hallway at the tail
Speaker 1: of her blouse, trailing through the door. We don't have
Speaker 1: to rush, I heard her say, laughterbraided with longing. I
Speaker 1: just needed to see you tuesdays good. I'll make time, promise.
Speaker 1: I forced my hands to be still, managing not to
Speaker 1: throw something, only by staring at our wedding photo perched
Speaker 1: on the shelf, two bright faces, wide eyed with belief
Speaker 1: in futures we thought we engineered and concrete. I've linked
Speaker 1: at that hopeful couple, unable to look away. Finally, when
Speaker 1: Olivia went upstairs for a shower, I crept back out
Speaker 1: to the planter, knee sinking in the wet mulch. Under
Speaker 1: her pile of smooth stones. I found what I dreaded
Speaker 1: and expected, A pipper napkin from vesper and vine, folded
Speaker 1: in quarters, ink, glowed but readable Olivia's handwriting looping a
Speaker 1: nervous next to you, I feel possible again. See you
Speaker 1: make me want to risk everything, everything, the house, the
Speaker 1: years nay. I gripped the knapkins so hard I crumpled,
Speaker 1: sinking to the ground. For a moment, I just sat
Speaker 1: there in the damp with the evidence the essential truth.
Speaker 1: I coung too loudly for denial. Olivia wasn't simply drifting,
Speaker 1: wasn't overwhelmed by workhole laws to ambash or falling into a depression.
Speaker 1: She hadn't named. She was in love with something like it,
Speaker 1: with another man. The partnerships got into the wet loam
Speaker 1: of my garden beds. The meetings time stumped in the
Speaker 1: notches of our schedule. Theo laughter, doubting my memory of
Speaker 1: how we used to be. My whole world contracted into
Speaker 1: a few feet of earth, my hands cold and them.
Speaker 1: I rose finally, more numb than angry. The note crumpled
Speaker 1: nothing in my palm. When I came back inside, Olivia
Speaker 1: had finished her shower. The bathroom humid, embry. She was
Speaker 1: wrapped in a towel, hair piled on top of her head,
Speaker 1: face cleaner than I'd seen it in weeks, she smiled,
Speaker 1: reaching for her musturizer. You okay, you look wiped. I
Speaker 1: wanted to scream instead, I said, tired, too much to
Speaker 1: think about. She nodded, focused on her reflection, smoothing lotion
Speaker 1: across her collar bones. We're both burning the candle at
Speaker 1: both ends. Can you grab the spare towels from the dryer.
Speaker 1: I went, Each step felt heavier than the last. I
Speaker 1: heard my own voice echoing in my mind, the way
Speaker 1: it would sound if I finally said everything. I decided
Speaker 1: the confrontation had to come to Morrow. Maydie well the
Speaker 1: next day, but soon, because there was nothing left to
Speaker 1: salvage in pretending not to know, and I wanted. I
Speaker 1: needed it to hear say it out loud, the same
Speaker 1: way I needed concrete test results, not just pluprints, to
Speaker 1: trust a foundation. That night, alone in the dark, I
Speaker 1: rehearsed it, my words, ghosting quietly into the cotney hush
Speaker 1: of our bedroom. Tomorrow, I promised myself, Tomorrow, I'll ask
Speaker 1: for the truth. But part of me hope Morning would
Speaker 1: find some last minute miracle in her face, something that
Speaker 1: would let me keep leaving, if only for a few
Speaker 1: more hours, that all I built hadn't already collapsed. Morning arrived,
Speaker 1: pale and newly silent. I expected the moment to feel catstrophic,
Speaker 1: for some cataclysmic thunder to rumble through the house. Instead,
Speaker 1: the world went on. Burrs started in the maple's crown,
Speaker 1: sun smewed gold across the kitchen, tile's toasted clicking dutifully
Speaker 1: behind me. Sitting at the table, I turned the names
Speaker 1: and fragments of the previous night over in my head,
Speaker 1: conscious of the paper napkin still folded tight in my pocket.
Speaker 1: My coffee went cold before Olivia patted in, fresh from sleep,
Speaker 1: rub nodded, faced jewy with moisturizer. She peered at me,
Speaker 1: hazel eyes uncertain, searching her operaly didn't sleep, not much.
Speaker 1: My hand tightened against the mug, knuckles whitening. She lingered there,
Speaker 1: half inside the room, as if at the threshold of
Speaker 1: a decision. Neither of us said anything. For a moment.
Speaker 1: I forced myself to move through the steps, filling the
Speaker 1: French press, rinsing my mug, acting as if things were normal.
Speaker 1: Each motion was heavier than it should have been. Every
Speaker 1: rustle of her sleeves, every sidle and glanced grate some
Speaker 1: new edge inside me. Olivia poured herself coffee, careful, wordless.
Speaker 1: She kept fiddling with her phone, checking notifications, her thumbs
Speaker 1: whirling anxiously. She paused by the sink lips press, then
Speaker 1: said too brightly, do you want to walk to the
Speaker 1: market with me later? Could you use extra hands? It
Speaker 1: almost sounded like habit, like she was testing whether I
Speaker 1: play along. I've got war piling up. You should go ahead,
Speaker 1: I replied, voice stripped of softness. I saw her WinCE,
Speaker 1: heard a brittle note in her next breath. The pretense
Speaker 1: strained between us, both knowing that something truly foundational had
Speaker 1: broken over night, but terrified, each for different reasons to
Speaker 1: be the first to say it. She busied herself making
Speaker 1: toast fit to the porch. The air outside was brittle,
Speaker 1: almost metallic, like it had rained and dried and no
Speaker 1: one had noticed. I stared at our little ouplanters, the
Speaker 1: green shoots pushing and concerned the upward, and wondered what
Speaker 1: new shape my life might take after this day. The
Speaker 1: morning passed in a blurrr, phone buzzing with reminders, ignored
Speaker 1: work emails, mounting messages from friends and families, stacking up
Speaker 1: each one in accusation. Where were you last night? You
Speaker 1: too missed the mixer? Everything you're gay? I didn't answer
Speaker 1: The list of what I owed Olivia what she owed
Speaker 1: me ran endlessly in my mind, pages and pages of
Speaker 1: silent calculations that didn't come close to reconciling. By nine,
Speaker 1: I caught myself pacing back and forth inside rooms we'd
Speaker 1: finished together, planed window frames, she'd sounded, moldings. I painted,
Speaker 1: each surface, now loaded with memory, every one a question mark.
Speaker 1: Olivia's was floted from the upstairs, Ally faint muffled talking
Speaker 1: on her phone, the conversation half hidden as always. When
Speaker 1: she came down, she moved carefully, measuring the space between
Speaker 1: us as she offered some nuncmmittal remark about work, call
Speaker 1: about how busy the week looked. I watched her slip
Speaker 1: shoes on by the door, then rummage for her keys.
Speaker 1: I'll see you tonight, she asked, I searching for something
Speaker 1: in my face. Yeah, sure, I lied, knowing that routine
Speaker 1: could stretch out only so long before it snapped. As
Speaker 1: soon as the door closed behind her, I retreated to
Speaker 1: the studio. I spread the notes across the drafting table,
Speaker 1: arranging each grap of hand directing like bliprints of something
Speaker 1: hidden and tragic. My phone buzzed with another message from Becca,
Speaker 1: this time asking if Olivia was okay if we wanted
Speaker 1: to come for dinner Saturday. I ignored it, staring instead
Speaker 1: at the evidence arrayed in the soft daylight. The ordinary
Speaker 1: quiet of the neighborhood made the whole thing feel both
Speaker 1: smaller and more immense. My hands trembled as I tried
Speaker 1: to work the illustrations. I attempted views of imagined buildings
Speaker 1: blowed unsteady. I gave up pacing instead. Sometimes in moments
Speaker 1: like this, Olivia would have come in, sensing my agitation,
Speaker 1: would have planted herself across from me and pressed a
Speaker 1: hand to my knee, anchoring me. The absence of that
Speaker 1: possibility thudded through my chest. I wondered how long she'd
Speaker 1: been vanishing from my reality, one overlap, one quiet omission
Speaker 1: at a time. It was almost a relief when the
Speaker 1: house phone rang, jarring me awake from suspense. It was
Speaker 1: my mother, her voice bracing, expectant, asking what we were
Speaker 1: doing for the association summer kick off with Olivi's job
Speaker 1: search had turned anything up. In my reply, I kept
Speaker 1: things neutral, stumbling through half truths, even as my mind
Speaker 1: screened at me to break the pattern, to finally say
Speaker 1: something real. The hours inch forward. I swept the porch,
Speaker 1: watered the plant to boxes eight leftovers in silence. The
Speaker 1: pit in my stomach didn't abate, It just solidified, turning sharper.
Speaker 1: Each time I thought about Kado's handwriting, Olivia's laughed with
Speaker 1: him in the dim light of the design meet up,
Speaker 1: the way her eyes always darted toward her phone when
Speaker 1: she thought I wasn't looking. I felt newly exposed, as
Speaker 1: if the whole block could see the cracks running through
Speaker 1: my chest through the mortar of our house. I realized
Speaker 1: painfully that I'd been holding out hope for a less
Speaker 1: devastating answer, that Olivia had been depressed, or overwhelmed, or
Speaker 1: hiding a crisis at work, something anything but the truth
Speaker 1: reflected in those damp, nackin lines. Yet, even in the
Speaker 1: deepest part of me, I already knew there was no
Speaker 1: rationalizing this into ambiguity. The next conversation would be the
Speaker 1: one that changed everything. Around five, my resolves settled like
Speaker 1: a weight in my bones. This couldn't wait another night.
Speaker 1: I'll marriage all seven years if it deserved more than
Speaker 1: secrets traded in the garden. Olivia texted as twilight fell,
Speaker 1: happy hours, running over, be home by seven, don't wait dinner.
Speaker 1: I watched the message for a long time from hovering
Speaker 1: over the reply fuel At last, I just tied o K.
Speaker 1: I gathered the evidence notes napkins, the accidental voicemail still
Speaker 1: keyed up on my phone. I stacked them with shaking hands.
Speaker 1: Each grap of handwriting, every fine joke took on a
Speaker 1: new and horrible clarity. The more I stared, the more
Speaker 1: I realized how much I'd ignored until now, and how
Speaker 1: deep a whole self deception can carve if you let it.
Speaker 1: When Olivia finally came home, light from the hallway fellow
Speaker 1: round her, pale blue in the dusk, she set her
Speaker 1: bag down and straightened, checking my face for clues. Her
Speaker 1: own face was carefully composed, but somewhere behind her eyes
Speaker 1: was a flicker of something fear, anticipation, may be even relief.
Speaker 1: Hey sorry, I'm late, she says, slipping out of her shoes.
Speaker 1: Carter got caught up with his manager and we lost track.
Speaker 1: The mention of his name made the air in the
Speaker 1: room thin. I gestured to the dining room table, where
Speaker 1: the notes lay in a neat line, waited by my
Speaker 1: coffee mark, my phone beside them. The voicemail keued up ready.
Speaker 1: Oliver looked from the evidence to me, face blanching all pretent,
Speaker 1: straining away, What is this? She managed, even as her
Speaker 1: hands found the back of a chair to steady herself.
Speaker 1: I let the question hang for a moment, swallowing down
Speaker 1: the tremor in my throat. I know live. It was
Speaker 1: all I could get out the words heavier than any accusation.
Speaker 1: I found a note, the voicemail. I tapped the phone,
Speaker 1: the recording playing her voice soft, unguarded, filling the air.
Speaker 1: Tell me the truth, No more excuses. I don't want stories,
Speaker 1: do I want all of it? She flinched as if struck.
Speaker 1: Her jaw worked wordlessly for a terrifying second. I thought
Speaker 1: she might pull, but instead she crumpled into the chair,
Speaker 1: dropping her phone on to the table as if it
Speaker 1: had burned her. You've been spying on me. Her voice
Speaker 1: was a troubling accusation wrapped in panic. I nearly laugh
Speaker 1: from the irony, if you want to call it that,
Speaker 1: or maybe just trying to understand the person I married.
Speaker 1: You won't look me in the eye anymore if he
Speaker 1: walk out rooms, You bury notes in the garden, you
Speaker 1: tell jokes. I don't understands carter Worth. All of this
Speaker 1: was ever enough for you? Or was I just dead? Wait?
Speaker 1: Since the day we moved in here. She covered her mouth,
Speaker 1: breaths coming in shallow gasps. Then between sobs, she found
Speaker 1: her voice. You you have no idea how lonely it
Speaker 1: gets after that project tanked and you just pulled into
Speaker 1: your sketchbooks. Carter listened, He didn't. He doesn't judge me
Speaker 1: for wanting more. Did started as work, I swear to
Speaker 1: just I don't know slipt. I never meant to it.
Speaker 1: Just it felt so good to be noticed, eaton, to
Speaker 1: feel seen. He made me feel alive. My vision blurred,
Speaker 1: hands nodded so tightly that pain shot up my arms.
Speaker 1: So you destroyed us for the chance to feel new again.
Speaker 1: My voice shattered. It wasn't me who vanish Olivier. It
Speaker 1: wasn't me who started hiding parts of myself that waited.
Speaker 1: I tried to be enough. She slammed a hand on
Speaker 1: the table. Angered, now desperate, he stopped asking anything real.
Speaker 1: You watched everything happen from the sidelines. You were so safe,
Speaker 1: so steady. I needed something, someone that made me feel
Speaker 1: like my life was still possible. Yes, caught her and
Speaker 1: I started seeing each other outside work, But first I
Speaker 1: thought I could stop it. I kept telling myself that
Speaker 1: up until the night at Vesper and Vine. You want details, Eton,
Speaker 1: we slept together. We made plans, secret plans to see if,
Speaker 1: maybe possibly there was something more than this. The words
Speaker 1: scraped against my roast nerves. So what then was always
Speaker 1: going to be just one foot at the door, waiting
Speaker 1: for the next better thing. You hid it in the dirt,
Speaker 1: live in our garden. Was that for me or just
Speaker 1: for sport? She blanched further, eyes filling with guilty tears. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't want it to be this. I thought, if
Speaker 1: I could just keep it at the margins, if I
Speaker 1: didn't have to choose, then nothing really broke. I didn't
Speaker 1: plan on falling for him. I didn't plan on hurting you.
Speaker 1: I I loved out life Heathan had, did I just
Speaker 1: I started loving other things too. I sat down heavily,
Speaker 1: all fury leaching out and leaving a thick kind of
Speaker 1: numbs in its place. So what now, I asked, Do
Speaker 1: you love him enough to go to start over? Or
Speaker 1: are you just going to keep trying to have both?
Speaker 1: She looked at her hands, twisting her ring. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can, if it's even real
Speaker 1: outside of the hiding. I just know I can't pretend
Speaker 1: here any more. We stared at each other, silent except
Speaker 1: for our breathing and the faint clink of our coffee
Speaker 1: mugs on the wood. The house out smaller, more fragile,
Speaker 1: as if every word spoken in that room threatened to
Speaker 1: bring it down. I need space, I finally managed four stick.
Speaker 1: I can't stay here, I can't do this to night.
Speaker 1: She nodded, lips trembling one tear, slipping down and tracing
Speaker 1: her jaw. I get it. I'm so so sorry for
Speaker 1: all of it. I know, sorry doesn't fix a thing.
Speaker 1: I couldn't speak. I just stood, moving as if through water,
Speaker 1: gathering my jacket from the rack in the bag I
Speaker 1: kept with a change of clothes in the hall closet.
Speaker 1: She didn't follow, just hunched at the table, staring down
Speaker 1: at the evidence that everything she'd hidden, as if any
Speaker 1: single word would shatter what was left upstairs. I stuffed
Speaker 1: a few shirts, socks, toiletries into my duffel. The simple
Speaker 1: act of packing for a few nights away became a
Speaker 1: ritual of disappointment. Every item a memory, a pair of
Speaker 1: socks she picked out on impulse, sweat as she bought
Speaker 1: me for a second wedding anniversary. I moved through the closet,
Speaker 1: avlready in the space where her gardening clogs stood, splattered
Speaker 1: with dried mud. At the last moment, I added my sketchbook,
Speaker 1: as if the mere act of drawing might help her
Speaker 1: build something inside me. Back downstairs, Olivia was exactly where
Speaker 1: I'd left her, head in her hands. I watched her
Speaker 1: for a moment, waiting for anger to swell again. Fly
Speaker 1: urged to demand one more explanation, one more lie. Instead,
Speaker 1: I felt only a dull ake, worse than any rage.
Speaker 1: She glanced up, red eyed. Will you where? Will you go?
Speaker 1: Erin's couch? I guess, doesn't matter. I met her gaze.
Speaker 1: No energy for fury left. I won't say anything to
Speaker 1: your sister, or to anyone. That's your story to tell.
Speaker 1: But we can't go on like this, not even for
Speaker 1: a day. Dear, I should I move out? She whispered,
Speaker 1: Not now. One disaster at a time, it was all
Speaker 1: I could muster. We stood there, the air swollen with
Speaker 1: all the words we would never say, And then I
Speaker 1: walked to the door, hand clutched tight around my bag.
Speaker 1: For a moment, I paused, as if the act of
Speaker 1: leaving would prove impossible, as if forcing myself to cross
Speaker 1: the line of elapse what remained of the person I'd
Speaker 1: been in this house. But the nearest thing to salvation
Speaker 1: was distance. I turned the knob and stepped out, rained,
Speaker 1: beginning to fall softly, drumming on the roof, like the
Speaker 1: distant sound of memory fading. As soon as the door
Speaker 1: closed behind me, something tied in my chest and want
Speaker 1: not relief exactly, not yet, but a bitter clean kind
Speaker 1: of certainty. Outside the street was empty. My footsteps sounded
Speaker 1: on the damp pavement as I followed the familiar path
Speaker 1: of the block. I could feel Olivia's slhouette let in
Speaker 1: the window behind me, spended above the garden beds where
Speaker 1: I'd found the evidence, now indistinct and and reachable, my
Speaker 1: phone buzzed in my pocket, amorred. For once, I didn't
Speaker 1: look at errands. Everything was subdued to clean sheets on
Speaker 1: in a familiar couch. Vamp left him for comfort, no
Speaker 1: questions asked. He handed me a bier, sat beside me
Speaker 1: in silence. I didn't speak. I watched the street lights
Speaker 1: blink on and off through the window and tried to
Speaker 1: measure and slow breaths. The scale of what I had
Speaker 1: left behind that night's leep came in fifthule waves. Each
Speaker 1: time I work, I'd searched for the familiar sound of
Speaker 1: Olivi's lother rising through the walls, the scent of basil
Speaker 1: from her hands, the warm tangle of limbs. At dawn
Speaker 1: instead of all absence, all the things that would never return.
Speaker 1: Morning led gray into the city, rain streaking the windows.
Speaker 1: My phone pulse with fresh messages, family wanting to check in,
Speaker 1: friends asking why we missed last night's event, even one
Speaker 1: from Olivia and so oh sorry, can we please just talk?
Speaker 1: I didn't answer. I pressed my head to the pillow.
Speaker 1: When focused on the feeling of being elsewhere, nowhere, I
Speaker 1: forced myself through the motions called the office, were scheduled,
Speaker 1: a meeting, send errand to fetch my favorite mup from
Speaker 1: the house so I wouldn't have to see her. The
Speaker 1: little things were wild with familiarity. A neighbor texted, porch
Speaker 1: looked slowly without you. All I could do was nod,
Speaker 1: let the sentiment settle like dust over my heart. Later,
Speaker 1: I drafted a message to our two families, fifteen words
Speaker 1: that said everything and nothing. Olivia and I are taking
Speaker 1: time apart. Please respect our privacy, no details, We're safe.
Speaker 1: I hit send before I could rethink it, watching their
Speaker 1: responses trickle in Becka's concern, my mother's careful inquiry, a
Speaker 1: handful of shocked emoji from mutual friends. The relief was
Speaker 1: non existent, but the task was complete. I called a
Speaker 1: mediator voy Flat set up an initial appointment for the
Speaker 1: next week. I didn't know what terms would come, how
Speaker 1: we'd unfailed the tangle of accounts of house of life.
Speaker 1: All I knew was that I refused to paralyze myself
Speaker 1: with waiting for Olivia were to beck. The rest of
Speaker 1: the day passed in a suspended, half dreaming state. The
Speaker 1: house was silent but for the click of Aeron's phone,
Speaker 1: the soft wine of traffic. Three times, Olivia's name flashed
Speaker 1: on the screen. I let it ring through, watching her
Speaker 1: request for conversation. Fadin answered if she left messages, I
Speaker 1: didn't check ify sun down. It became clearer even to
Speaker 1: the neighbors that something had changed. The porch remained empty,
Speaker 1: no coffee mugs, no talk, no argument. Olivia must have
Speaker 1: stayed inside, for no lights appeared in her garden o kitchen.
Speaker 1: One tax arrived late from Marla. Is everything okay? Mischie
Speaker 1: boast to day? I stared at it, then closed my phone,
Speaker 1: letting the unanswered question join all the others hanging around
Speaker 1: me for the first time since this began. The house
Speaker 1: felt like a stranger's, and I felt, however, fleetingly, like
Speaker 1: a ghost, moving just outside the world I'd made. On
Speaker 1: the third day, I slipped back to the blocker's dusk
Speaker 1: filtered gold through the trees. Porch lights flickered along the road,
Speaker 1: slow won by one, layers of ordinary life resuming without us.
Speaker 1: I let myself through the side gate without ringing, breathing
Speaker 1: in the scent of earth, mint lavender. The porch boars creaked,
Speaker 1: just as they always had. I sat the smote, swelling
Speaker 1: in the angled light, my keys and my palm them
Speaker 1: circling the familiar grooves. I let my gaze sweep over
Speaker 1: the garden, its order and affected cuttings, flourishing and silent,
Speaker 1: to find some of what we broken. The house behind
Speaker 1: me loomed, both precious and impossible, echoing. Were too many memories,
Speaker 1: too much undone. I breathed in, slow and deep, then
Speaker 1: set my keys quietly on the pain worn raily. A
Speaker 1: minute pass may be more, settling gaily into the deepening twilight,
Speaker 1: the sound of a car somewhere, the call of a
Speaker 1: night bird. I stood, brushing off my jeans feeling every
Speaker 1: muscle and clenched by slow degrees. I didn't look back
Speaker 1: as I made my way down the steps, the door
Speaker 1: behind me shut, the porch standing empty in the falling dark.
Speaker 1: And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and
Speaker 1: I will see you in the next one.