Chapter 2

At 7 PM, the sky had gone dark.

I turned on the lights. When the living room lit up, I saw that the edges of the avocado slices on the dining table were already turning brown. The lime juice had dried up, leaving only a faint white dusting of sea salt behind.

I had no appetite. I didn't eat a single bite.

At 8 PM, I started scrolling through Instagram.

The first post was a colleague sharing a picture of their kid. The second was a college friend promoting their new book. The third was from Xavier.

I recognized that profile picture instantly. It was a plain dark gray background, nothing fancy. Xavier always said there was no need for anything flashy.

I tapped on it.

Xavier had posted nine photos.

The middle one showed a cake and a girl. The others were of the crowd, drinks, and the dim lights of the bar.

The last one was a solo shot of the girl, smiling at the camera, showing a hint of her teeth. Her smile was sweet.

The location was tagged as a bar in Sablewick.

The caption read: [She has finally grown up. Happy birthday, girl.]

Under that post, I saw a bunch of comments from our mutual friends.

[Mr. Lynn, are you finally getting a crush? That girl's pretty cute.]

[Xavier, you actually posted on Instagram? That's a first.]

Xavier didn't reply to any of them.

But I noticed he liked one comment.

It read: [Does your wife know?]

Xavier liked it.

I stared at that like for a long time.

Then I saved all nine photos, zooming in on each one, again and again.

I saw the scarf.

I saw the name "Xavier." I saw the sleeve of his sweater. I saw his hand resting on the sofa behind the girl.

Her hand was barely four inches away from his.

I set my phone down on the bed and lay back.

The ceiling was white, the chandelier was white, and the walls were white. When we decorated this place, Xavier insisted on keeping things simple and clean.

I agreed. So that was all there was: white, everywhere.

Eight years ago, when we first got married, we rented a tiny place that was only 430 square feet. Then Xavier got promoted, and we moved into a bigger apartment. When he became a director, we bought this 1,500-square-foot place.

After that, his career kept climbing, and our houses got bigger and bigger. But the time he spent at home kept getting shorter.

Sometimes I wondered if this place was so blindingly white, so empty, that he simply couldn't bear to come back.

But he always said he liked things simple and clean.

At 2:19 AM, Xavier got back.

At 2:20 AM, he headed straight to the study.

At 2:21 AM, I sat up in bed and stared at his post. I kept looking at it until dawn started to break.

At seven in the morning, I got up.

The study door was still closed. I went to the kitchen and made breakfast. I fried two eggs, toasted two slices of bread, and poured some milk. I set Xavier's breakfast on the dining table, ate mine, and washed the dishes.

At seven thirty, the study door opened.

Xavier walked out, wearing yesterday's clothes, his face still puffy with sleep. He saw me and paused. "You're up early?"

"It's not that early," I said. "Breakfast is on the table."

He murmured a response and headed for the dining table.

I followed him, watching as he sat down, picked up his fork, and started eating his eggs. Halfway through, he looked up. "Yesterday, you said there was something. What was it?"

I stood next to the table, watching him.

He was wearing a gray shirt, the collar a little wrinkled. His face showed nothing, and his eyes were distant. He was just going through the motions, asking as if it didn't really matter.

"Yesterday was our eighth anniversary," I said.

His fork stopped for a second.

Then he stabbed another bite of egg, put it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and took a sip of milk. "I forgot."

I looked at him.

He kept his head down. "Yesterday was the new assistant's birthday. She's all alone in Blackroot, nobody to celebrate with her. So I got everyone together and threw her a little party."

I didn't say anything.

He glanced up at me for a moment. It was so quick that I couldn't see what was in his eyes before he looked away.

He said, "Don't get the wrong idea. She's just a kid; she needs someone to take care of her."

A kid who needed to be taken care of? So, a twenty-two-year-old kid needed a thirty-four-year-old married man, wearing the sweater his wife knitted and the scarf his wife bought, to celebrate her birthday in a bar and take care of her?

I let out a small laugh. "I didn't get the wrong idea."

He mumbled a response and kept his head down, eating his breakfast.