The sound hitting me the moment I opened the front door was visceral. It wasn’t just crying; it was keening. It was the sound of a soul being ripped apart.
I dropped my briefcase and ran. I walked into the living room to find my wife sobbing uncontrollably.
She was curled into a ball on the sofa, surrounded by a graveyard of crumpled tissues. Her shoulders heaved with every breath. I had never seen her this distraught—not when she lost her job, not when her car was stolen.
“Babe!” I shouted, dropping to my knees beside her. “What happened? Talk to me!”
She looked at the ceiling, tears streaming down her face, addressing the universe with pure anguish.
“‘I can’t believe it’s over,’” she wailed.
My stomach dropped. It. Was she talking about us? Did she find something? Or was it her mother?
“‘After everything we’ve been through!’” she sobbed, clutching a throw pillow.
“We?” My mind raced. We’ve been through a lot. Was she leaving me? Or was this about someone we both loved?
I rushed to hug her, asking who died. “Is it your dad? Is it the cat? Just tell me, I can handle it!”
She pulled back, sniffling loudly. She looked up, mascara running down her cheeks in thick, black rivulets, looking like the survivor of a terrible accident.
She took a deep, shuddering breath to deliver the news that had shattered her world.
“‘My favorite show got cancelled on a cliffhanger.’“.
I froze. I was holding her face in my hands, adrenaline coursing through my veins, prepared to call a funeral home or a divorce lawyer. And she was crying about a fictional dragon tamer who would never get to reclaim his throne.
I slowly let go of her face. “A show?” I whispered. “You’re crying like this… for a TV show?”
“They didn’t even resolve the love triangle!” she shrieked, burying her face back in the pillow.
I sat back on my heels, the panic slowly turning into exhaustion. I realized then that while I was living in the real world, my wife was living in Season 2, Episode 10, and the network executives had just committed a murder in our living room.