Chapter 1 - The Voice on My Wife's Phone
The man on my wife's phone called her "baby" before he realized our eight-year-old son had answered.
It happened on a Saturday afternoon in our living room.
Caleb was stretched across the carpet, playing a racing game on Simone's phone. I was sitting in my favorite armchair, half watching a basketball game, half thinking about what we should do with the rest of our weekend.
From the kitchen came the smell of onions and garlic.
Everything felt normal.
Then the phone rang.
Caleb glanced at the screen.
“Mom! Uncle Daniel's calling!”
I looked up.
“Who's Daniel?”
Before Caleb could answer, Simone appeared in the kitchen doorway.
She had been stirring something on the stove, but now she was moving so quickly that she nearly bumped into the coffee table.
“Caleb, give me the phone.”
He looked confused.
“But somebody's calling.”
“Just give it to me, sweetheart.”
She reached for it.
Caleb, thinking he was being helpful, tapped the green button.
“Hello?”
A man's voice came through the speaker.
“Hey, baby. Has your husband left yet?”
The room went silent.
Caleb's smile disappeared.
Simone froze with her arm still extended.
I slowly lowered the television remote.
For a second, I wondered if I'd misunderstood what I'd heard.
Then I looked at my wife.
“Baby?”
The man on the phone stopped speaking.
“Simone,” I said quietly, “who is that?”
She looked at the phone as though it had caught fire.
“Daniel, I'll call you back.”
She snatched it from Caleb's hands and ended the call.
I stood.
“So that's Daniel.”
“Andre, please don't do this in front of Caleb.”
“Do what?”
She swallowed.
“Make a scene.”
I couldn't believe she had said that.
A stranger had just called my wife "baby" and asked whether her husband was gone.
And she was worried about me making a scene.
Caleb looked from his mother to me.
“Dad, is something wrong?”
I saw the uncertainty on his face.
He knew something had changed, even if he didn't understand what.
I forced myself to lower my voice.
“Hey, buddy. Why don't you go upstairs and finish that drawing you were working on?”
“But Mom's phone—”
“You can use your tablet.”
He slowly got up.
Simone moved toward him.
“Caleb, honey—”
He stepped around her.
Something about that small movement made my stomach tighten.
After he disappeared upstairs, I turned back to my wife.
“Tell me who Daniel is.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“He works at the clinic.”
Simone was a medical assistant at a sports medicine practice outside Charlotte. She'd been working there for four years.
I'd heard dozens of coworkers' names.
But Daniel wasn't one of the people she usually mentioned.
“What does he do?”
“He's a physical therapist.”
“Why is a physical therapist calling you baby?”
She looked toward the stairs.
“Andre, lower your voice.”
“My voice is already low.”
“Then please just listen.”
I waited.
She sat on the couch and clasped her hands together.
“Daniel and I got close.”
I felt the words settle between us.
“How close?”
She didn't answer.
“Simone.”
“It started as friendship.”
“When?”
She looked down.
“March.”
It was September.
Six months.
I thought about every ordinary day between those months.
The family dinners.
The school mornings.
The nights I'd come home from work and kissed her before asking how her day had gone.
“Are you having an affair?”
Her eyes filled.
“Andre, I never wanted you to find out like this.”
That was my answer.
I sat down because my knees suddenly felt weak.
I had spent eleven years loving this woman.
We had built our life slowly. We hadn't inherited money or been handed an easy start. We'd worked for everything in that house.
And now I was sitting in the room where we'd celebrated Caleb's birthdays, listening to my wife admit she'd been sharing herself with another man.
I looked up.
“Does Daniel know about me?”
She nodded.
“Does he know we're married?”
“Yes.”
I stared at her.
Then I remembered the way Caleb had announced the caller.
Uncle Daniel.
Not some unfamiliar name.
Someone my son recognized.
I felt a different kind of fear.
“Simone, has Daniel met Caleb?”
She hesitated.
“Yes. At a clinic picnic.”
I looked toward the staircase.
My son had eaten lunch with the man who was secretly involved with his mother.
Before I could ask another question, I heard soft footsteps.
Caleb stood halfway down the stairs, holding his tablet against his chest.
His eyes were wet.
“Dad?”
I stood immediately.
“What is it, buddy?”
He looked at his mother, then back at me.
May you like
“Did I do something bad?”
And just like that, my anger stopped being the most important thing in the room.
