My voice hardened.
“He just forgot to tell you about the life he already had.”
Claire arrived at the coffee shop carrying a canvas bag.
She looked exhausted.
Early forties.
Tired eyes.
A wedding band on her finger.
Seeing that ring nearly made me turn around and leave.
Instead, I sat down.
“I almost didn’t come,” she said.
“Neither did I.”
Then she opened the bag.
Her phone.
Printed messages.
Photographs.
There were hundreds.
Mark telling her she was beautiful.
Mark promising visits.
Mark writing:
You helped me believe I could love again.
There were birthday dinners.
Christmas photographs.
Weekends away.
In one picture, Mark wore a sweater I had bought him.
Claire noticed me staring.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I swallowed.
“Keep going.”
Then she showed me photographs from several sunny weekends at the lake.
Mark wore a silver wedding ring in all of them.
Including a photograph taken six weeks earlier.
