3: 3

3

My outburst made her eyes redden in an instant.

"Stanley, how can you talk about your own wife like that? You're the one I love!"

"Bryce is just a lounge singer at a bar. Sure, he's good-looking and he can dance, but what part of him could ever measure up to you?"

"You've got a mansion worth millions. Why would I ever betray you?"

My breathing came heavier. What had I just heard?

Ever since we married, Susan had switched careers and become a real estate agent, renting a little office in the city.

I never asked about her business. Who she met, who she sold houses to, none of it was anything I knew.

But it had never once crossed my mind that she'd go to a place like a bar.

"So that's where you met that pretty boy. You told me you were busy with work every single day. Turns out you were busy chasing a thrill at some bar."

The more I said, the more worked up I got, but she just looked at me, calm, her voice without a ripple.

"Sweetheart, believe it or not, Bryce is a client of mine too. That secondhand place his father lives in, the one you went to today, I'm the one who sold it to him."

As she spoke, she pulled a ring from her pocket and held it out to me.

"I brought the wedding ring back. I've explained everything. If you're still angry, then go ahead and hit me."

She closed her eyes, and two tears slid down from the corners.

My face darkened and shifted, dark then uncertain.

After a struggle, I still took the ring from her hand, my tone easing just a little.

"You really never did anything to wrong me?"

She didn't answer. She only lifted her face and waited for my slap to land.

"Fine. I believe you, honey. I wronged you."

Her eyes opened, and at last a smile broke across her face as she threw herself into my arms.

"Thank you, sweetheart. You're so good to me."

"I promise you, from now on I won't see Bryce again. I won't play his fake wife anymore. I belong to you and you alone."

I nodded and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

Dry wood to open flame, the two of us tangled together in the bedroom, and afterward, keeping her promise, she went to the kitchen and made chicken soup for me herself.

For the whole month after, Susan stopped throwing herself into work and took over every bit of the housework at home.

Not only did she cook every day with her own hands, she kept the house in perfect order.

Her gentleness pulled me all the way out of the bad feeling from before.

Three years married, and she and I had always used protection.

With the deadline my father had set drawing close, I decided to come clean and ask her for a child.

But I'd just gotten home from work, and I was about to open my mouth, when Bryce showed up at the door on his own.

He carried a basket of fresh fruit, and cradled in his hands were white carnations, which he held out to Susan the moment he walked in.

"What are you doing here?"

I braced like a man facing an enemy and frowned at him.

"Stanley, I came to apologize for what happened last time."

"Because of me, you and your wife had a falling out, and you even ended up throwing punches."

"I really couldn't let it sit, so I picked today to come by in person and ask for your forgiveness."

My face stayed cold. A weasel wishing the chickens a happy new year is up to no good.

"I get it. I'm not holding it against you anymore. Leave the stuff and you can go."

But my wife wasn't having it.

"Sweetheart, Bryce came all this way, and you won't even let him have a cup of tea before you send him off? That means you still won't forgive him in your heart. How's he supposed to feel settled going home like that?"

"Then what do you want?"

"He's already here. Let Bryce stay and have dinner with us, let everyone get to know each other again."

"We're out of beer at home. Go buy a couple of cases and we'll drink together."

And with that, the two of them looked at me at the same time.

4: 4

4

I stared at the two of them for a long moment, hesitated again and again, and in the end I still nodded.

"Fine, I'll go buy it."

By the time I got back with the liquor, the table was already set with a spread of good dishes.

Bryce came over grinning to carry in the bottles, the happiness on his face impossible to hide.

We were supposed to be drinking hard and having a good time, but the whole meal tasted like nothing to me.

Every time I lifted a bottle to my mouth, out of the corner of my eye I could plainly see Susan and Bryce trading looks on the sly.

Only when she noticed my face darken did she finally start putting food on my plate.

Besides the few dishes I liked, the table also held braised eggplant and scrambled eggs and tomatoes, two things I didn't like.

No need to guess. Those were made for Bryce.

After dinner, Bryce used digesting his food as an excuse and lingered in the living room, watching TV with Susan, refusing to leave.

I sat alone at the table, drinking to drown it out.

I can't hold my liquor, but tonight, of all nights, I put away fifteen Heinekens in a row.

My head went hazy, and before I knew it I'd fallen asleep right there at the table.

When I woke, my head was splitting and my stomach churned like it was on fire.

I couldn't even manage to throw up. My eyes went to the living room on instinct, and both of them were gone.

That cleared my head fast.

"Baby, where are you?"

"Susan, where are you?"

No one answered. I stumbled into the living room, then back to the bedroom to check, and she was nowhere.

When I saw the clock hand pointing to two in the morning, my breath caught and my head throbbed like it was being torn apart.

I pulled out my phone and called Susan again, and again it said the phone was off.

I dropped back onto the couch and gripped my hair with both hands.

This late, where in the world could she be?

I didn't want to keep thinking about it, and I had no idea where to even look for her.

The whole night I couldn't sleep at all, and at dawn a message from Susan suddenly came through.

I opened it. It was a photo taken in bed, Susan sound asleep with her arm around a man's shoulder.

The person who sent it was Bryce.

The phone clattered to the floor.

I'd waited the whole night, and this was what I got?

I should have seen it coming. I'd just forced myself not to think about the worst.

She'd lied after all.

I was surprisingly calm. No roaring, no smashing things.

I picked the phone back up. The photo had already been deleted in a second.

Was this her getting a thrill out of me, betting I hadn't woken up to see it?

But in that gamble, everyone lost.

At seven in the morning, I contacted the real estate company and sold this ten-million mansion off cheap, no questions asked.

From the buyer sending people over, to inspecting the house, signing the contract, and handling all the paperwork, the whole thing took less than two hours.

The moment the door of Unit 12 in Section A was sealed with a notice, I wheeled my suitcase out, ready to leave Waterview Estates.

Outside the courtyard, Susan came back in a taxi.

She saw the seal on the door at once, and her voice trembled.

"What on earth happened? How did our mansion end up like this?"

"Honey, where are you going?"

She grabbed hold of me, her face awful, more lost than I had ever seen her.

"I sold the mansion. Let's get divorced!"

As I said it, I threw a set of divorce papers into her hands.

Outside the courtyard, the Rolls-Royce the butler had driven over was already waiting.