How up is that? " Pretty up, but also pretty normal. David grabbed another slice of pizza. You're mourning the death of your marriage and the death of your understanding of your wife. That's two losses at once. Give yourself permission to feel shitty about it.
I don't have time to feel shitty. I have to meet with HR Wednesday. Sign divorce papers Thursday. Figure out how to divide a life by Friday. Then feel shitty next week.
Schedule it. Put it in your calendar. Tuesday 2 p.m. Fall apart completely. Wednesday 2 p.m.
Put yourself back together. I almost smiled at that. You think it works that way? No. But you're going to try anyway because that's who you are.
You're going to compartmentalize and schedule and organize your way through grief because the alternative is chaos and you hate chaos. He was right. He knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. We finished the pizza and the beers and watched a game neither of us cared about. And for a few hours, I felt almost normal, almost okay, almost like a person instead of a collection of wounds held together by spite and stubbornness.
When David left at 11:00, he hugged me at the door. Call me if you need anything, and I mean anything. Company, conversation, help burying a body, whatever. I'll be fine. I know you will.
But you don't have to be fine alone. After he left, I locked the door and walked through my empty house one more time, checked the locks on windows, turned off lights, did all the small rituals of ending a day. In the bathroom, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I looked older, tired, like someone who'd aged years and weeks. But I also looked different in a way I couldn't quite name.
Harder maybe, or clearer, like grief had burned away some softness I'd been carrying, leaving something more essential behind. I went to bed and actually slept. 6 hours of dreamless unconsciousness that felt like mercy. And when I woke Tuesday morning to more messages, more questions, more people wanting to know the story, I answered them all with the same methodical honesty because this was what I chosen. This path of radical truthtelling, of refusing to let Rachel's lie stand unchallenged.
And if it made me look vindictive or cruel or unforgiving, so be it. At least I could look at myself in the mirror and know I'd told the truth. At least I could live with who I was becoming. At least I could sleep at night. That had to be worth something.
Wednesday morning arrived cold and bright, the kind of November day that makes everything look crisp and unforgiving. I dressed in my best suit, the charcoal one I'd worn to job interviews and funerals, occasions that required gravidos, and drove to Cascade Tech headquarters downtown. The building was all glass and steel, aggressively modern, the kind of place that probably had a meditation room and kombucha on tap. I'd been here before to company parties where Rachel had introduced me to colleagues whose names I forgot immediately, where Marcus had shaken my hand and smiled and looked me in the eye while planning to betray me. Security directed me to the 14th floor.
Jennifer Ward's office overlooked the city floor to ceiling windows that made everything feel exposed. She stood when I entered. Mid-40s professional suit, the kind of face that gave nothing away. Mr. Rostine, thank you for coming.
She gestured to a chair across from her desk. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water? I'm fine, thank you.
She sat, folded her hands on the desk between us, and got straight to it. I'll be direct. We've received reports of an inappropriate relationship between two of our employees. Based on the information we've gathered so far, your name has come up as someone who might have relevant knowledge. Before we proceed, I need to clarify.
You are under no legal obligation to speak with me. This is entirely voluntary. I understand. And anything you tell me will be used in our internal investigation and could result in disciplinary action against the employees involved. Are you comfortable with that?
I thought about Rachel, about the job she'd worked so hard for, the career she'd built. Thought about what losing it would mean for her, for her future, for whatever life she was planning with Marcus. Then I thought about the lies, the betrayal, the year of fake fertility treatments, the two weeks in the Bahamas paid for with our savings. I'm comfortable with that, I said. Jennifer pulled out a legal pad.
Walk me through what you know. I did. I told her about discovering the affair, about the phone records and text messages, about the Bahamas trip that Rachel had claimed was a work conference. I told her about Marcus, about how long they'd been colleagues, about the progression from friendship to something more. Do you have documentation?
Jennifer asked. I pulled out a flash drive I'd prepared specifically for this meeting. This contains phone records, text messages, credit card receipts, hotel reservations, and security camera footage from your parking garage showing Rachel and Marcus leaving together on multiple occasions when they both supposedly worked late. She took the drive, turned it over in her hands. Security camera footage.
How did you obtain that? I didn't. A friend who works in building security did. He's prepared to testify if necessary. That was a lie.
I paid a security contractor $200 to pull the footage, and he'd made it very clear he wouldn't testify to anything. But Jennifer didn't need to know that. This is She plugged in the drive, opened the files, her face remaining professionally neutral as she scanned through evidence. This is quite thorough. I had a lot of time to be thorough.