And then the line that does it. "When's the last time you made me feel like this?" The room goes quiet in pockets. The band stumbles, recovers.
I feel my mother's eyes on my back. I keep my tone level. "We can talk about this at home. Let's go." Evan finally opens his mouth.
"The lady doesn't want to leave, man," he says, still holding her. "Maybe give her a break." At that moment, it's official. I'm not her husband.
I'm the obstacle, the antagonist in a story she's performing for an audience. I look at her one last time. She doesn't meet my eyes. So I do the only thing I can to keep my hands and my record clean.
I turn around, walk past the tables, past the stairs, out the front door of Meridian Gastropub without another word. Let them think I backed down. They had no idea that was the moment I started walking away for good. I don't remember the drive from Meridian to my mom's house, just the white lines and my hands locked on the wheel hard enough to make my fingers ache.
Donna opens the door before I knock twice. One look at my face and she steps aside. No questions, not yet. She makes coffee like it's a drill we've practiced.
Mug down, sugar on the table, her sitting across from me in her old robe, waiting for me. I tell her everything in one flat, ugly stream. The dress, the dancing, the way Kristen clung to Evan, the public speech about how I never make her feel alive. The part where she pressed into him while she gutted me in front of everyone.
My mom doesn't dress it up. "That's an affair," she says. "Papers or not." I stare into my coffee and think about how six months earlier I installed security cameras after a neighbor's break-in.
Front door, entryway, driveway. Back then, it was about safety. That night, sitting at her kitchen table, I realized it's about something else now: evidence. I drive back to the house while Kristen is still out making memories she'll call nothing later.
The place is dark, quiet. Olivia's nightlight glows down the hall. My chest tightens and then hardens. In our bedroom, I pull a suitcase from the closet.
Shirts, slacks, underwear, socks, important documents from the fireproof box, passport, birth certificates, my laptop, the external hard drive that stores the camera backups. Her side of the closet is untouched. My side looks like a clearance rack. I stand there for a long minute looking at the bed we share.
I'm not going to be the man who screams and throws things. I'm not going to beg. I'm going to document. In the living room, I wake up the security system and scroll through recent footage.
Front door angles, timestamps, motion alerts. Everything's running. Everything's clean. Good.
I don't know exactly what's going to happen when she comes home. I just know I want the record. Not her version. Her name lights up my phone twice, three times.
I let it ring. I text my mom instead. "Can you pick up Olivia in the morning? I'm staying with you for a bit." No explanation.