I called my father. Dad and I had always been close, though not in a talk everyday kind of way. He was 68 then, retired after 35 years managing a warehouse operation. He believed in showing up, paying what you owed, keeping family problems inside the family. I told him, "I think Travis has gotten too comfortable." There was a pause.
Not a long one. Long enough that I remember it now. Then Dad said, "He's had a rough year." "I know. Give him a little more time." Dad, it's been months. He'll get himself sorted out.
I like the guy. I just want my house back. Another pause. Then he said, "He's family, Mason." That did it. I trusted my father.
If he thought Travis needed another month, I could give him another month. What I didn't know was that my father's hesitation had a reason. I wouldn't learn that reason until after I discovered the affair myself. 3 weeks later, I discovered it. I was supposed to spend two nights in Knoxville.
The first day went normally. I had meetings with a mechanical contractor in the morning and a property group in the afternoon. The next morning, I was supposed to sit through a sitewalk and then dinner with two vendors. At about 4:30, the contractor called and said the sitewalk had to be pushed because of a permit issue. Dinner was cancelled with it.
I could have stayed in the hotel. Instead, I threw my bag in the car and drove home. I texted Jenna that morning that I'd be busy most of the day. I didn't text her again because I wanted to surprise her. It was a little after 11:00 when I pulled into our driveway.
Travis's truck was there. Of course, it was. He lived there. The downstairs lights were off except for the lamp over the stove. I came in through the garage, set my bag beside the mudroom bench, and noticed the guest room door down the hall was open.
The room was dark. The bed looked untouched. I didn't think of the affair. Not yet. I assumed Travis was watching television upstairs or had fallen asleep on the couch.
I climbed the stairs. Our bedroom door was closed. That caught my attention. Jenna almost never slept with the bedroom door closed when I was gone. She said it made the upstairs feel stuffy.
I was three steps from the door when it opened. Travis walked out. For a second, neither of us moved. He was wearing a t-shirt and gray sweatpants, no shoes. He looked at me, then at the stairs behind me like there might be some version of reality where I wasn't actually standing there.
I said, "What are you doing in my bedroom?" He blinked. Jenna wasn't feeling good. The answer came too fast. What? She got dizzy.
I heard something. I was checking on her. Jenna appeared behind him. She had changed into the oversized sleep shirt she usually wore to bed. Her face went pale when she saw me.
Mason, what are you doing home? That question mattered more than anything Travis had said. Not your home. Not I thought you were in Knoxville. What are you doing home?
Like I was the person who had entered the wrong place. I looked down. Travis was barefoot. His shoes were beside our bedroom door. I could see his phone plugged into the outlet on Jenna's side of the bed.
The charger ran up to the nightstand. I looked at him, then at her, then back at him. How long have you been in here? Neither answered. Jenna finally said, "It's not what you're thinking." I almost laughed.
I didn't. I said, "Okay." She stared at me. "What do you mean, okay? I mean, I heard you." Then I walked downstairs. Travis followed me.
"Mason." I turned around. He stopped three steps above me. I said, "Don't. Just that." He stayed where he was. I picked up my bag and went back outside.
I sat in my car for maybe 10 minutes. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn't put the key in the ignition even though the car started with a button. I knew I didn't have a photograph. I didn't have a confession. But I knew the question wasn't whether something had happened.
The question was how much? And for some reason sitting there in the driveway, another question came into my head. Who else knows? That question stayed with me because once it showed up, I couldn't get rid of it. Sitting in that car, I started replaying things I hadn't thought about in months.
Jenna defending Travis every time I mentioned a deadline. Travis knowing when I was leaving town. The two of them going quiet in the kitchen. Even the nights I had come home late and found them sitting in the same room barely talking felt different now. I hated how quickly my own memories stopped feeling like mine.
Every harmless moment suddenly looked like it might have had another version happening underneath it. And the worst part was that I still didn't know where the truth ended. I only knew the two people inside my house had been keeping something from me, and I had no idea how long they'd had help doing it. I drove to a hotel 15 minutes away. Jenna called 11 times.
Travis called twice. I didn't answer either of them. Around midnight, Jenna sent a message. Please come home so we can talk. Then, you're misunderstanding what you saw.
Then, I love you. That was the one that made me put my phone face down. I slept maybe an hour. The next morning, I called work and took the day off. I didn't call a lawyer yet.
I didn't call my father. I didn't call a friend. I wanted facts. I started with what I already had access to. Jenna and I used a joint credit card for household expenses.
I opened the account and went back several months. Most of it was normal. Groceries, gas, restaurants, Target, utilities. Then I started looking at dates I had traveled. There were restaurant charges I didn't recognize, not expensive ones.
That almost made them worse. A lunch place in Franklin on a Tuesday. I had been in Louisville. A wine bar on a Thursday. I had been in Chattanooga.
A parking garage downtown on a night Jenna told me she'd stayed home watching television. Any one of them could have meant nothing. Together, they looked different. I pulled up my calendar. I compared dates.
The pattern wasn't perfect. People who lie for months don't usually create a clean spreadsheet for you, but there were enough overlaps. I remembered the night I'd come home early from Louisville and Travis had said, "Thought you weren't back until tomorrow." I remembered Jenna asking what time I was leaving. I remembered walking into the kitchen and both of them going quiet. I remembered her telling me, "He's family.
Give him some time." At noon, Jenna sent another message. Can we please talk? I didn't answer. Then Travis sent, "I owe you an explanation." I stared at that sentence for a long time. Not nothing happened.