Chapter 5: The Call I Wasn't Supposed to Hear
I didn't sleep that night.
Mark had offered to stay until I felt steadier, and I'd let him sit at the kitchen table for another hour while I made tea I didn't drink and stared at the receipt with the initial L written at the bottom.
Around midnight I told him I was all right and he went home, but not before writing his number on the back of an envelope and leaving it on the counter.
"Call me for anything," he said.
"I mean that."
I nodded.
I locked the door behind him.
Then I sat down on the kitchen floor with my back against the cabinets and the receipt in my hand and I stayed there for a long time.
I wasn't crying.
I was doing something quieter and more frightening than crying.
I was remembering.
The Thursday evenings Eric came home later than usual.
The way he'd started showering immediately when he got in, before dinner, before even saying hello properly.
The new cologne he'd bought in the fall and said was just something he'd seen on sale.
The way he'd stopped reaching for my hand in the car.
I had noticed all of it.
I had explained all of it away.
In the morning I called my sister, Diane.
"I need you to come over," I said.
She was at my door within the hour.
I showed her the credit card statement, the hotel charges, the restaurant pattern, the receipt.
She sat at the same kitchen table where Mark had sat the night before and she read everything twice without speaking.
Then she said: "What do you want to do?"
"I want to know the truth before he comes home," I said.
"I don't want to have a conversation where he can talk me out of what I already know."
Diane looked at the receipt.
"L," she said.
"I've been thinking about his contacts," I said.
"He has his phone locked now.
He changed the code about four months ago.
He said his old code was too simple."
"Four months ago," Diane repeated.
"Right around when the Olio charges started."
She set the paper down.
"Do you have access to the phone plan?
The carrier account?"
I did.
Eric had set it up years ago but added me as an account manager when we got my daughter her first tablet.
I opened the carrier website on my laptop.
Diane leaned in beside me.
The account showed both lines — mine and Eric's.
Call logs, data usage, text volume.
I clicked on Eric's line.
The call log showed the last thirty days.
There was a number that appeared again and again.
Not saved under a name on the carrier's end — just a number.
But it appeared fourteen times in the past month.
Twice on the day he left.
Once at 11 p.m.
the night before.
Diane wrote the number down.
"Don't call it from your phone," she said.
She picked up her own phone, dialed, and put it on speaker on the table between us.
It rang three times.
A woman answered.
"Eric?" she said.
Her voice was warm.
Familiar.
The voice of someone who expected to be recognized.
Diane ended the call.
We sat in silence for a moment.
"She has his number saved," I said.
"Yes," Diane said.
"She answered expecting him."
"Yes."
I closed the laptop.
The receipt was still on the table.
*Same time next week?
— L.*
My phone buzzed.
A text from Eric.
*Morning.
Miss you.
Conference is good.
Home Friday.*
I read it.
I set the phone down.
"I need a lawyer," I said.
Diane was already reaching for her own phone.
"I know one," she said.
May you like
"She's very good.
And she doesn't like men like Eric."
