Chapter 3: The Number That Wouldn't Explain Itself
By eight o'clock the next morning, Jermaine had called me seventeen times.
I knew because I counted.
I also knew that if I answered, he would begin with my name spoken in that soft, patient voice he used whenever he wanted me to believe that my anger was the real problem.
“Dee, baby, just listen.””
“Dee, you're misunderstanding.””
“Dee, I know you're hurt.””
He would say anything except the sentence I needed to hear.
I married another woman while I was married to you.
So I let the calls go unanswered.
His first message arrived at 6:12 a.m.
Please come home. We need to talk about this.
The second came eleven minutes later.
I never wanted you to find out this way.
I read that one twice.
Not because it explained anything, but because it revealed what he believed the problem was.
The way I found out.
Not what he had done.
I took screenshots of every message and saved them in a folder. Then I wrote down the dates and times.
At nine, I drove to my house.
I had lived there with Jermaine for fourteen years. The front porch needed painting, the mailbox leaned slightly to the left, and a small crack ran along the living room ceiling because I had refused to call a contractor when the problem first appeared.
I had planned to repair it before Thanksgiving.
We had planned a lot of things.
Inside, everything looked ordinary. His work boots sat by the back door. My purse from the night before was still on the kitchen counter, where I had dropped it before going to my mother's.
There were two coffee mugs in the sink.
One was mine.
The other had a faded logo from a college he never attended but had always liked.
I had given it to him years ago.
I picked it up, then put it down.
I wasn't ready to decide what to do with his things. I wasn't ready to look at every object in our house and ask whether it belonged to my marriage or to the performance of it.
I went to the bedroom and opened his dresser.
His socks were rolled in pairs. His undershirts were stacked in the second drawer. His work shirts hung in color order because I had organized them that way after he complained that he could never find anything.
Everything was familiar.
Everything felt contaminated.
I closed the drawer.
Then I walked into the home office and turned on the computer.
Our family phone plan was in my name. I had the login, the billing account, and the right to manage the lines attached to it. I changed the account password and enabled additional verification before reviewing the device information again.
I did not remove anyone's line yet.
I wanted the records preserved first.
The fifth device had been activated twenty-two months earlier. The carrier account showed its activation date and the monthly charges, but not the name of the person who had purchased it.
The phone itself was not listed as one of the four devices I recognized.
I checked the account's authorized users.
Only my name appeared.
That meant no one else had been given permission to manage the plan through the account.
It did not tell me who held the fifth phone.
I called the carrier again and asked whether the device could be identified through its account history. The representative explained what information was available to me as the account holder and what would require additional authorization or a formal legal process.
I thanked him.
I was beginning to understand that there was a difference between being entitled to a record and being able to obtain it.
I could see the number.
I could see the charges.
I could see when the line had been used and how long some calls lasted.
But I could not turn a phone number into a person's identity simply because I wanted the answer badly enough.
I needed a connection.
I returned to the yellow legal pad.
The number ending in 4418 appeared repeatedly. It was the most frequent destination in the fifth line's call history.
I searched my contacts.
Nothing.
I searched old messages.
Nothing.
Then I searched my email for the last four digits.
The first result was an automated notice from a hospital appointment system. It had been forwarded to me by Tameka nearly two years earlier because she had accidentally used my email address when she was completing a form.
I opened the message.
The appointment date matched one of the months when the fifth line had been particularly active.
I stared at the screen.
The hospital was where Tameka worked.
That did not mean the number belonged to her. It did not prove the fifth phone had anything to do with her job. It did not prove that the calls were personal.
But it gave me a reason to look at the timeline more carefully.
I printed the email and placed it beside the phone records.
Then I noticed something I had missed earlier.
The fifth line's earliest visible activity occurred in the same month that Tameka had been promoted to supervisor.
I sat back.
For years, I had celebrated every step she took forward. When she got the hospital job, I brought her flowers. When she became a supervisor, I took her to dinner. When she bought her apartment, I helped carry boxes until my back hurt.
She had called me her good luck charm.
I had laughed and told her she was the one doing the work.
Now I wondered whether the phone had been part of a different kind of arrangement.
My own phone rang.
Tameka.
I watched the screen until the call ended.
A message appeared immediately.
Dee, please. I know you hate me right now, but please let me explain.
I typed a response.
How long have you known about the fifth phone?
I stared at the words for a few seconds.
Then I deleted them.
If she was involved, she would know exactly what I was asking. If she wasn't, the question would still tell her what I had discovered.
I needed to know more before I gave either of them a chance to coordinate an explanation.
Instead, I wrote:
I need time. Do not come to my house.
Her reply arrived almost instantly.
I won't. I promise.
I put the phone down.
Three minutes later, Jermaine sent another message.
Your mother says you're at the house. I'm coming over.
I called Beverly.
“Did you tell Jermaine where I was?””
“No, baby.””
“Did he ask you?””
“He called, but I didn't tell him anything.””
“Thank you.””
“Deandra, do you want me to come sit with you?””
“No. I need to do this by myself for a little while.””
“All right. But if you need me, you call.””
I hung up and went to the front window.
Jermaine's truck appeared at the end of the street eleven minutes later.
He parked in the driveway, got out, and walked toward the house with his shoulders hunched. He looked tired. His beard needed trimming, and his shirt was wrinkled.
For a moment, I remembered the man who had waited outside my college classroom with flowers because I had passed an exam I was certain I would fail. I remembered him holding my hand during my father's funeral. I remembered how he had cried when the doctor told us we had lost our baby.
Those memories were real.
That was what made the rest so difficult.
He knocked.
I opened the door but left the security chain fastened.
“Dee.””
“What do you want?””
“To talk to my wife.””
“You have another one.””
He flinched.
“I know how this looks.””
“No, Jermaine. You know how it looks when you get caught.””
He put one hand against the doorframe.
“Please let me in.””
“No.””
“Fourteen years, Dee. You're going to throw away fourteen years without even hearing me?””
I stared at him.
“You threw them away when you stood in another woman's wedding clothes and promised her forever.””
He looked down.
“I didn't plan for things to happen this way.””
“How did you plan for them to happen?””
He had no answer.
I watched his mouth tighten as he searched for something that would make him sound less guilty.
Finally, he said, “Tameka and I were together before I understood what was happening.””
“Before you understood you were married to me?””
“That's not what I meant.””
“Then say what you mean.””
He lifted his head.
“It started a long time ago. Things were complicated.””
I felt my fingers tighten around the edge of the door.
“Six years ago?””
He looked away.
“Jermaine, answer me.””
“Yes.””
“Were you married to me when you married her?””
His silence lasted long enough to become an answer.
I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, he was staring at the chain.
“Dee, I never stopped loving you.””
I almost laughed.
“Did you love her?””
He rubbed his face.
“It's not that simple.””
“Was she wearing your ring?””
“Yes.””
“Did you live with her?””
He didn't answer.
I leaned closer to the narrow opening.
“Did you live with her?””
“Sometimes.””
The word landed between us like a stone.
Sometimes.
Sometimes, he had eaten at her table. Sometimes, he had slept in her bed. Sometimes, he had brushed his teeth beside hers. Sometimes, he had taken off his shoes and left them by her front door.
Sometimes, my husband had been somebody else's husband.
“Was the fifth phone yours?””
His head snapped up.
“What?””
“The fifth line on my plan. The device I didn't recognize. Was it yours?””
He looked at me for one fraction of a second too long.
Then he said, “I don't know what you're talking about.””
I felt the room go quiet around me.
There it was.
Not a confession.
Not even a convincing lie.
Just a man standing on my porch, asking me to trust him while denying something I could see in my own records.
“You don't know?””
“No.””
“Then why did you look scared?””
“I'm not scared.””
“You are.””
He stepped toward the door.
“Dee, let me come inside. We can figure this out together.””
“Together?””
I released the security chain from its bracket only long enough to close the door completely.
His hand caught the edge before it shut.
“Dee, wait!””
I pulled back.
“Don't touch my door.””
He withdrew his hand.
I locked the deadbolt.
For several seconds, I stood with my palm against the wood, listening to him breathe on the other side.
Then his footsteps retreated across the porch.
I watched through the window as he got into his truck and drove away.
My phone buzzed.
A new message from an unknown number.
Stop looking at the phone records. You don't know what you're going to uncover.
I read it once.
Then again.
There was no name attached, no explanation, and no signature.
I took a screenshot.
I wrote down the time.
And for the first time since walking into Tameka's apartment, I felt something rise above the pain.
Fear was still there.
Grief was still there.
But beneath both was a cold, clear certainty.
Someone knew what I was searching for.
Someone had noticed that I was no longer looking away.
I turned back toward the computer and opened the list of calls to the number ending in 4418.
Then I began making a new list.
Not of the calls themselves.
Of the dates.
The first date was twenty-two months earlier.
The last was three days ago.
May you like
And beside the last date, I wrote the words that would guide everything I did next.
*Who knew I would find out?*
