Kimberly Belle - The Marriage Lie

My brother and I are seated cross-legged on the closet floor, surrounded by messy piles of Will’s clothes and shoes. The closet looks like a tornado came through it, whipping clothes off the hangers and out of the bins and dumping everything onto the floor. I pick up one of Will’s sweaters, a baby-bottom-soft cashmere I bought him last year for his birthday, and hold it up to my nose, inhaling the familiar scent.

In that moment, I feel Will so strongly that it stops the breath in my throat and prickles the hairs on the back of my neck. Hey, sweetness, he says in my head, as clearly as if he’s standing right beside me. Whatcha doing?

I shake the image off, drop the fabric onto my lap. “Now what?”

Dave pauses to think. “His car?”

“It’s at the airport.”

He nods. “Dad and I will figure out how to get it back. In the meantime, what about social media? When’s the last time you checked his Facebook page?”

Dave’s question stuns me. Will and I share a home, a life, a past. Our relationship has always been built on trust and honesty. He gives me leeway, and I give him a long leash.

“Never, and stop looking at me like that. Snooping is not something we do, ever. There’s never been any reason for either of us to be jealous or suspicious.”

Dave inhales, but he doesn’t say the words both of us are thinking.

Until now.

James’s voice comes around the corner. “Hey, Dave?”

“In the closet,” Dave calls out.

James’s laugh beats him to the closet doorway, where he appears clad in head-to-toe lululemon and clutching a white gift bag. His blondish hair is plastered to his forehead with rain and sweat, and his breath comes in quick, hard puffs. “There are so many jokes I could make right now.”

Dave rolls his eyes. “Did your run take you by the mall?”

James looks down at the bag like he just remembered he was holding it. “Oh, right. It’s for Iris, I guess. I found it hanging on the front doorknob. There’s no note.”

I take the bag and pull out a brand-new iPhone 6, one of the big ones with more gigabytes than I could ever use, still in the sealed box.

“Why would somebody give you an iPhone?” James says.

“Because she feels sorry for me, and she knows I broke mine.” I drop the box back into the bag and hand everything back.

“Do you want me to set it up for you?” Dave says.

“No, I want you to take it back to the store, get a refund and then buy me a different one with my own money.”

“Wouldn’t it just be more efficient to write this person a check?”

As usual, my brother is right. I do need a new phone, though I’ll be damned if anybody but me pays for it. “Okay, but you’ll need my laptop to install it. I think it’s in a kitchen drawer somewhere. And while you’re at it, look up what that thing costs, will you?” I’ll have to log on to the school system to find Claire’s address, then I can drop her a check in the mail.

“Sure thing.”

That settled, James leans a shoulder against the doorjamb, taking in the shambles we’ve made of the closet. The rows of askew hangers, the mountain of sweaters and shirts on the floor, the clothes hanging out of the drawers like a half-off bin at Target. “Do I even want to know?”

“We’re snooping,” Dave says.

“And?”

“Nothing. Not even a gas receipt.”

Dave’s tone is heavy with meaning, as is his expression. A hard knot blooms in my belly at the silent conversation that passes between the two men. What kind of person leaves nothing, not even a gum wrapper or a forgotten penny, behind? The kind who doesn’t want his wife to know what he’s up to. Their words come across so clearly, they might as well have said them out loud.

“He wasn’t cheating,” I say, my voice as unyielding as I feel. There are some things you know to the very core of yourself, things you would bet your life and very last penny on. This is one of them. “He wasn’t.”

Dave gestures all around him, to the piles of clothes and shoes. “Sweetheart, no man is this vigilant. There’s got to be something going on here.”

“Of course there’s something going on here. Will got on the wrong plane, flew off in the wrong direction. But not because of another woman. Because of something else.”

James opens his mouth to offer up an opinion, and Dave gives him a hard look, one that says zip it. I know as soon as they’re behind the closed door of the guest room across the hall, they’ll be arguing points and discussing theories, and I suppose I should get used to it. My family will not be the first ones to think the worst of Will, that he has another woman—a girlfriend, a wife, the mother of his children—tucked away in a suburb of Seattle.

A stab of fury steals my breath. How could Will do this to me? How could he leave me here all alone, unarmed and clueless, to fight this battle? I want to defend him, I want to defend us, but I don’t know how. He’s left me with nothing but questions. How am I supposed to prove everyone wrong?

Dave presses a palm to my knee. “We’ll keep looking, okay? We’ll get on a plane and go to Seattle if we have to. We’ll find his something else.”

I nod, my heart seizing with love for my twin brother. His offer doesn’t come out of a staunch belief in my husband, but mainly out of belief in me. He’s willing to search for another explanation only because I’m so adamant there is one.

“You are my second favorite person on the planet,” I say, right before dissolving into tears, because it’s no longer true. Without Will here, Dave just got moved up to first place.

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