Chapter 3: The Blue House on Sycamore Lane
The GPS took me off the highway after thirty-two minutes and guided me down a two-lane road I had never seen in my life.
Quiet streets.
Older houses.
A neighborhood that looked like it had been there for decades, comfortable and settled and completely unknown to me.
Then it said: *You have arrived at your destination.*
I pulled over and sat with the engine running.
The house was small.
Blue, with white trim.
A wooden porch with two chairs on it, side by side.
A flower bed along the front walk — marigolds, the same ones Richard used to buy me every spring.
A mailbox with the name *Calloway* painted on it in careful black letters.
I didn't know anyone named Calloway.
I turned off the engine.
My legs carried me to the front door before I had made any decision to move.
I knocked.
Footsteps.
A pause.
Then the door opened.
The woman standing in front of me was around fifty.
Silver hair cut short.
Reading glasses pushed up on her head.
She was wearing a cardigan the color of oatmeal, and she was holding a paperback novel with one finger marking her place.
She looked at me.
I watched the color leave her face.
"You're his wife," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"I'm Carol," I said.
"Richard's wife.
Yes."
She closed her eyes for just a moment.
When she opened them, something in her expression had shifted — not guilt exactly, but something heavier.
Something that had been waiting a long time to be set down.
"My name is Patrice," she said quietly.
"You'd better come in."
I followed her into a living room that smelled like coffee and old books.
She gestured to the sofa.
I sat.
She stood near the window with her arms crossed, not looking at me.
"How did you find this address?" she asked.
"His GPS," I said.
"It was saved as Home."
Her hand came up to her mouth.
She stood like that for a moment.
"He never changed it," she said, more to herself than to me.
"How long?" I asked.
She turned to face me.
"Eleven years."
The room tilted.
I gripped the edge of the sofa cushion.
"Eleven years," I repeated.
"Carol — "
"Did you know about me?"
"Yes."
"Did you know we were still married?"
"Yes."
I looked around the room.
There were photographs on the shelf above the fireplace.
I stood up before I meant to and walked toward them.
Patrice didn't stop me.
Richard at a barbecue, laughing.
Richard on a boat, squinting into the sun.
Richard at a kitchen table that wasn't ours, coffee cup in hand, looking more relaxed than I had seen him in years.
And in one photograph, Richard standing next to Patrice, her head tilted toward his shoulder.
Both of them looking at the camera.
Both of them looking like people who lived there.
"He spent every third weekend here," Patrice said from behind me.
"He told me he was consulting for a firm in the city.
I assumed that was what he told you too."
"He told me he was at a conference," I said.
My voice sounded very far away.
"Every third weekend.
For eleven years."
I set the photograph back on the shelf.
My hand was steady.
I don't know how.
"I need to ask you something," I said.
"And I need you to tell me the truth."
"All right."
"Did my children know about you?"
She hesitated.
One second too long.
"Daniel came here once," she said.
"About three years ago.
Richard brought him.
I think Richard wanted — I don't know what Richard wanted.
Daniel never came back.
He never called me.
But he knew."
I walked back to the sofa and picked up my purse.
"Thank you for telling me," I said.
"Carol — "
"I need to go."
I was at the door when she spoke again.
"There's something else," Patrice said.
"Something I think you need to know before you leave.
About the house.
Your house."
May you like
I stopped with my hand on the doorframe.
"What about my house?"
