I haven’t told anyone about this and I paw through my motives like so much broken glass and crumpled paper. I have a perverse unique status in this mess: I am the only one who knows that the cuckold knows. Or maybe not. Would Sadee tell Shar that I know what they know? I go for a walk, a short one, when the kids are occupied and Sadee has just backed the car safely onto the street and then sped away to her, what, date? Tryst? I have this odd feeling that I just cannot divulge this secret to anyone, not the affair itself, but the fact that I know about it. Sadee has called me an enabler many times in arguments about what kinds of restrictions to put on the kids, but I never dreamed I would be enabling this.

It’s windy in fits and I regret not taking a hat, even the baseball cap they gave all the participants at that job fair. WORK. YOU., it says in red on white and my mind doddles to the side as I try to imagine different punctuation that might be more applicable. There’s a dry spot on the sidewalk at the same time as I pass a hedge that blocks the wind, and I slow down to savour the caressing, the gentle pleasure that a literal force of nature can give. I stand there for a moment, looking around, like this is a planned rendezvous with someone who hasn’t shown up. There’s no one and nothing. Nothing to see out of the ordinary and no one to be puzzled that this doofus has stopped in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk for some reason.

I turn around and head back to the house, faster now. The wind closes the door more loudly than I intend, and there’s an immediate call from Lolly upstairs.

“Mom?”

“It’s just me, honey. Just checking things. Your mom won’t be home for a few hours yet.”

It was more or less on a whim that I decided to let Sadee just get on with this. An acte gratuit. And as with all quick decisions I’m now faced with how to deal with implications and feelings that I didn’t consider in that half a second. I know I don’t want to be seen to be waiting up for her, or actually to be waiting up for her. I couldn’t act myself through that with any kind of sincerity.

So, how’d it go? How was the food? What did you get up to afterwards?

I also don’t want to sit on this couch and brood about the whole thing and then pad up to bed about fifteen minutes before her ETA. I want to be doing something. I want to feel the same way I feel when Grady is over at his best friend’s house for a play date. He’s absent. He’s not in the house. I am, and these are the things that I am doing.

I’m startled when the lights of a car go by outside and the horn blows. It’s nothing. Probably some kid trying to get used to the family SUV. And I realize that this understanding cuck that I played, that I was, on the bed when I talked to her needs to adjust. I feel like I’ve told someone I’m coming to the party but I don’t know where it’s being held. So I wait.

But then I don’t. I turn off all the lights except the one outside over the steps and just go to bed. Teeth brushed and flossed, mouthwash rinsed out, and it’s just me and my cotton boxers as far as I can get to my side of the bed without falling onto the floor. I close my eyes and it doesn’t matter if I’m sleeping. I feel like I’m hiding under the floorboards of the cabin in the woods while the psychopath with the knives creaks slowly over me, looking into the obvious hiding places.

I hold my position. I don’t move a fucking inch.