The commute was killing him. That’s what David told me, his eyes shadowed with exhaustion as he slumped over his Sunday morning coffee.
“It’s two hours each way, Sarah,” he had sighed. “By the time I get home, I’m dead. I can’t focus. I’m losing my edge at the firm.”
I hated seeing him like this. I wanted him to succeed. So when he proposed the solution, I didn’t just agree; I championed it.
“My husband rented a small apartment in the city ‘to be closer to the office’ during the week,” I told my friends proudly. I painted it as a strategic move, a sacrifice we were both making for our future.
For a year, this was our routine. David would leave on Monday morning with a garment bag and a kiss, and return on Friday evening, tired but “happy to be home.” I spent my weeknights alone, eating leftovers and missing him, comforting myself with the knowledge that I supported his career. I was the good wife, the anchor that allowed his ship to sail.
Last Tuesday was our tenth anniversary of meeting. David had “forgotten”—or rather, he said he had a massive merger closing and couldn’t get away. I decided I wouldn’t let him eat takeout alone on such a special day.
I made his favorite—beef wellington, packed carefully in a thermal carrier. I put on the dress he liked. I drove into the city, heart fluttering with the anticipation of romance.
One day, I went to surprise him with dinner.
I had a key—for emergencies only, he had said—but I had never used it. I let myself into the building and took the elevator to the fourth floor.
The apartment was quiet. “David?” I called out softly, not wanting to interrupt a conference call.
There was no answer. I walked into the kitchen. It didn’t look like the bachelor pad of a workaholic. There were magnets on the fridge. There was a sippy cup drying on the rack.
My stomach turned over. A sippy cup?
I walked down the hallway. The door to the master bedroom was open; the bed was unmade. I turned to the second bedroom, the one he told me he used as his home office.
I pushed the door open, expecting a desk, monitors, stacks of legal briefs.
Instead, I was met with a wall of soft yellow paint. A white crib stood in the center of the room. A mobile of plush lambs spun slowly in the draft from the air conditioner.
I found a nursery in the second bedroom.
I stood frozen, the thermal bag slipping from my numb fingers and crashing to the floor. The noise didn’t matter. The silence of the room screamed at me.
I walked over to the crib. It wasn’t for a visitor. It was lived in. There was a worn blanket. A pacifier on the changing table. And on the shelf, a framed photo.
It was David. He was holding a toddler—a boy with his eyes and his chin. Standing next to him was a woman I didn’t know, her hand resting possessively on his shoulder. They looked like a family. A happy, complete family.
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. The “exhaustion” on Fridays wasn’t from work. The “late nights” weren’t billable hours.
He wasn’t working late; he was raising a secret toddler with another woman.
He hadn’t rented an apartment to be closer to his job. He had rented a home to play house with a second wife. I wasn’t supporting his career; I was subsidizing his double life. I was the weekend wife, funding the weekday family.
I heard the front door open.
“Honey, I’m home!” David’s voice called out—cheerful, bright, the voice of a man walking into a happy home.
“Daddy!” a small voice squealed.
I stood in the center of the nursery, surrounded by the evidence of his betrayal, and waited for him to walk through the door and see that his two worlds had finally, catastrophically, collided.
