Ava.
A happy little family.
I stared at it.
David.
My David.
The man who color-coded our tax folders.
The man who got shy when ordering dessert.
The man I had spent years building a life with.
A woman’s wig.
A sparkly dress.
Sunglasses.
Lipstick.
In his trunk.
I tried to think logically.
I really did.
The late nights he’d blamed on year-end filings suddenly came back to me.
The way he’d stepped out of the room last Monday to take a phone call.
And then there was the receipt I’d seen on the kitchen counter weeks earlier.
I’d noticed it.
But I hadn’t bothered to read it.
Now my hands were shaking.
“Stop it,” I said out loud to nobody.
“You don’t know anything for sure yet.”
I picked up my phone to call David.
Then I put it down.
I picked it up again.
Then I put it down.
If I called him at work, he’d have hours to come up with an explanation.
If I texted him, I’d spend the rest of the day analyzing every word, every punctuation mark, every delay between messages.
So I forced myself to do the hardest thing possible.
Nothing.
I went through the day like a ghost.
I got Ava ready for school.
I dropped her off.
I came home.
I did laundry.
I washed dishes.
I went grocery shopping.
At one point, I stood in the cereal aisle for fifteen minutes without actually choosing anything.
My mind was somewhere else entirely.
By school pickup, I must have looked strange.
Ava climbed into the car, took one look at me, and immediately asked if I was sick.
“I’m okay, sweetheart,” I said.
Then I tried to sound casual.
“Tell me more about all the fun you had at Josephine’s yesterday.”
Ava’s entire face lit up.
“It was sooo much fun, Mom! We played spa!”
“That’s nice.”
I tightened my hands around the steering wheel.
Then I finally asked the question I’d been rehearsing all day.
“Ava, honey, did you tell Josephine something about Daddy’s car?”
Her face lit up even more.
“Oh yeah!”
My heart began pounding.
“Daddy has the best stuff in his trunk.”
I swallowed.
“What kind of stuff?”
“There’s a really long yellow wig. A shiny pink dress with sparkles. And these huge sunglasses, like a movie star’s. Oh, and red lipstick!”
She said it so innocently.
