And the woman wrote back: "Tell me about it. I made an excuse and slipped out. I'm driving my lover home right now."
Ethel was cheating on me.
She'd brought her lover into our home.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking as I put the phone away and walked out of the bedroom.
I looked at the four dishes and the soup sitting on the table.
A sharp pain lanced through my chest.
Ethel remembered every single thing I liked. She remembered that I got shaky and lightheaded when I was hungry. She remembered that I loved when she kissed me goodbye before she left.
But she forgot the one thing that mattered most.
I despise betrayal.
How ironic.
A person could pour out her love for me with one breath and bring another man home with the next.
In that moment, I couldn't help but wonder. All those years of devotion I'd been so proud of—how much of it was real, and how much was a lie?
When had it started between her and that man?
I sat at the dining table for a long time, trying to steady myself.
Then something occurred to me.
The second it did, I called my parents and asked them to come over.
They must have heard the urgency in my voice, because they arrived faster than I'd ever seen them move.