I Took My Husband’s Phone In For Repair. The Technician, A Family Friend, Pulled Me Aside And Said,

That we know how to find information. How to trace connections. How to build cases from scattered facts.

He’d forgotten that women my age didn’t survive this long by being naive. Kevin finished photographing the messages and handed me back the phone. “What now?”

“Now you fix this screen beautifully,” I said.

“And when Robert picks it up tomorrow, you tell him everything worked perfectly. No data lost. No problems at all.”

“And you?”

I slipped the phone into my purse.

“I’m going home to make dinner. And then I’m going to find out every secret my husband has been keeping.”

I walked out of that repair shop into the October afternoon. The sun was setting over Casco Bay, painting the water gold and red.

Beautiful. Deceptive. Like 41 years of marriage that had hidden a plot beneath its calm surface.

Robert wanted me “gone” by January 12th. He was going to be disappointed. I cooked the salmon that evening with the kind of precision that comes from muscle memory—sear four minutes on each side, finish with lemon and dill, roasted asparagus on the side.

I moved through our kitchen—our kitchen with its white subway tiles I’d chosen, and the copper pots Robert’s mother had given us as a wedding gift—and felt like a stranger in my own life. Robert arrived home at 6:15, exactly as he had for 41 years. I heard his key in the lock.

The familiar pattern of his footsteps in the hallway. He appeared in the kitchen doorway, still wearing his white dental coat, and smiled. “Something smells wonderful,” he said, and kissed my cheek.

His lips felt like ice against my skin. “How was your day?” I asked, my voice steady—the level voice I’d perfected over four decades of marriage. “Long.

Mrs. Patterson needed a root canal. And you know how she talks.” He loosened his tie, that small gesture of coming home I’d watched thousands of times.

“How about you? What did you do today?”

This was the test. I set down the spatula and turned to face him.

“I took your phone to Kevin’s. He’ll finish final tests overnight so you can pick it up tomorrow.”

I watched his face. Watched for the flicker of panic.

The tightening around his eyes. Any sign that he remembered what was hidden in that phone. Nothing.

His smile didn’t waver. “Oh, wonderful. Thank you, dear.

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