She'd brought her lover into our home.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking as I put the phone away and walked out of the bedroom.
I looked at the four dishes and the soup sitting on the table.
A sharp pain lanced through my chest.
Ethel remembered every single thing I liked. She remembered that I got shaky and lightheaded when I was hungry. She remembered that I loved when she kissed me goodbye before she left.
But she forgot the one thing that mattered most.
I despise betrayal.
How ironic.
A person could pour out her love for me with one breath and bring another man home with the next.
In that moment, I couldn't help but wonder. All those years of devotion I'd been so proud of—how much of it was real, and how much was a lie?
When had it started between her and that man?
I sat at the dining table for a long time, trying to steady myself.
Then something occurred to me.
The second it did, I called my parents and asked them to come over.
They must have heard the urgency in my voice, because they arrived faster than I'd ever seen them move.
"What's going on, Donnie? You sounded frantic on the phone," my father said.
I didn't hold back. I told them everything—every last detail about Ethel's affair, laid out in a single breath.
When I finished, my father looked like the ground had shifted beneath him.
"Donnie, is there any chance this is a misunderstanding? Everyone can see how good Ethel is to you. The girl adores you."
"And you know how her job works—she's a surgeon. She's on call around the clock. Maybe there really was an emergency she had to handle?"
"That post... couldn't it just be a coincidence?"
My mother slammed her palm on the table.
"Coincidence? Are you out of your mind?"
"The post said the car was parked sideways. Ethel parked sideways."
"Donnie walked in without calling first. The post described the exact same situation."
"The post said the wife snuck out to drive the lover home. Ethel made up an excuse and left."
"And there just happened to be another man's hair on the bed? You think all of that is a coincidence?"
My father frowned. "But Ethel has treated Donnie like he's more important than her own life all these years—"
My mother scoffed. "So what?"
"Just because she's been good to him means she can't cheat?"
"Every woman who's messing around on the side plays the perfect wife at home. That's the whole point."
"The better the act, the harder it is to see through."