She laughed at all his jokes.
A little too hard.
A little too long.
I noticed, but I told myself I was imagining it.
Daniel is a good-looking man.
Women laugh at his jokes.
It’s nothing.
That’s what I told myself.
I was wrong.
Let me tell you about Daniel.
We met at twenty-three.
Both of us broke, both of us dreamers.
He proposed in a parking lot because he couldn’t wait to get somewhere nicer.
I said yes before he finished the sentence.
Nineteen years.
We have two kids.
Our daughter Hannah is away at college now.
Our son Max is seventeen, a senior, barely home.
Daniel runs a small HVAC company.
He fixes what’s broken.
That’s his whole personality, honestly.
He sees a problem, he fixes it.
He’s not a flirt.
He’s not smooth.
He’s the kind of man who texts me when he’s five minutes late.
Who still holds my hand in the car.
Nineteen years and he still reaches for my hand at red lights.
I tell you this so you understand.
Our marriage was not cracked.
There was no gap for anyone to slip through.
Camille thought there was.
Camille was wrong about that too.
Within two weeks, she started coming over.
Always when Daniel was home.
Never when it was just me.
The first time, it was a cabinet door.
“It just won’t stay shut,” she said. “I’m hopeless with tools.”
Daniel went over and fixed it in ten minutes.
Came home and shrugged.
“Loose hinge,” he said. “Easy.”
The second time, a heavy box in her garage.
The third time, a lightbulb in a high fixture.
“I’m terrified of ladders,” she said.
She was not terrified of ladders.
I watched her climb one in heels to hang a planter the week before.
But I said nothing.
I was still being kind.
Still telling myself a story where she was just a lonely woman who needed help.
Then came the afternoon that ended the story.
It was a Tuesday.
Daniel was at a job across town.
Camille knocked on my door.
She had a bottle of wine.
