She just replies, "Of course." I grab my ring finger with my thumb and slide the band off. It leaves a pale groove on my skin. I put the ring in my palm and close my hand around it.
That's how I fall asleep on my mom's pullout couch, fully dressed, suitcase on the floor, hard drive in my bag, wedding ring in my fist instead of on my hand. I'm done sleeping inside the blast radius. The night after Meridian, I live on autopilot. Wake up on my mom's pullout couch, shirt wrinkled, back sore, head pounding.
Olivia's already at school. Mom handled drop-off like we agreed. Kristen's name sits at the top of my missed calls list. I don't touch it.
Around lunch, curiosity wins. I plug in the external drive, pull up the camera software, and scrub through the timeline. My stomach's already in a knot before I even hit play. There I am leaving the house earlier that evening, straightening my tie on the porch.
A couple of hours later, my mom's headlights when she drops Olivia off after the party started. The house goes quiet. Night deepens. At 1:47 a.m., motion alert.
Kristen appears in the frame, heels uneven on the path, fumbling for her keys. A minute later, headlights wash over the front of the house. Same car I saw outside Meridian, Evan's. He walks up, easy, steady.
He shouldn't even know my address. She turns to him at the door. Long hug, not friendly, hands in her hair. His face buried in her neck.
Then the kiss, slow, open, familiar. My jaw clenches so hard it hurts. I watch it twice just to make sure I'm not exaggerating. If anything, it's worse the second time.
My phone buzzes. Kristen. I let it go to voicemail. The message comes through a minute later.
"Tom, this is ridiculous. It was just dancing. You embarrassed me. Call me back so we can fix this before you make it worse." I look at the paused frame of her with his hands on her face, his mouth on hers, our porch light haloing them while our daughter sleeps 20 feet away.
"Just dancing," I say to the empty room. Late afternoon, I get another call, an unknown number. It's someone from HR at Kristen's company asking if everything is okay at home, saying there's been some chatter and they prefer personal matters not spill into work. I hear it in the spaces between her words.
She's already telling people her husband had a jealous tantrum. By 3:00, the school calls. "Mr. Harris, this is Mrs. Lopez, the counselor. Olivia's been very tearful today."
"She said Daddy didn't come home last night, and she's worried she did something wrong." That one hits differently. I pinch the bridge of my nose. "She didn't do anything wrong."
"There are some things going on between her mother and me. I'll speak with her." "Please do," she says gently. "She asked if her family was breaking up."
After I hang up, I sit there staring at the wall. I can live with my pride being bruised. I can live with being the office villain in whatever story Kristen has to tell to function. What I can't live with is my kid thinking she broke something.