The affair was hers. The gap it grew in had been dug by both of them with ordinary tools: overtime, politeness, the American habit of calling endurance a virtue until it became a wound.
Scout leaned against his leg. Reggie scratched behind the dog's ears where the fur always tangled. "You tried to tell me," he said. Scout sneezed, which was as close to agreement as the moment required.
Inside the house Sondra moved from room to room like someone packing without boxes—touching frames, adjusting a curtain, standing still in the hallway where the silhouette had been. When Reggie came back in she was holding their wedding photo, the cheap frame from the drugstore, both of them younger and certain.
"I don't know where to put this," she said.
"Leave it," Reggie answered. "Taking it down tonight turns this into a museum. I'm not ready to be a museum."
She set it back on the shelf. Her hands shook once, then steadied.
***
The second night was quieter and somehow harder.
They sat at the dining table with takeout neither of them wanted. Scout lay under Reggie's chair. Sondra pushed rice around her plate.
"Ask me what you need to ask," she said.
"Did you sleep with him in our bed?"
She looked at him. "Yes."
The answer went through him like cold water. He had known it was coming. Knowing did not help.
"Did he stay overnight?"
"Twice. When you were on the long weekends covering the new loop."
"Did you tell him you were unhappy?"