Four Minute Phone Call Exposed My Husband and My Best Friend
“I will, Dot,” I said.
She smiled, wiped the edge of the table with her apron, and moved back toward the counter.
The warmth of her hand stayed on my shoulder for a moment before the cold air of the diner returned.
James did not wait for me to look away from the photos before he turned the blue paper divider in the folder.
Below the glossy prints lay twenty pages of typed notes, organized by date and time in neat rows.
The heading at the top of the first page read: Observations of L.S.
“He has been building this folder on you for over a year,” James said, his monotone steady and clinical.
I stared at the first entry, dated August fourteenth of last year, the day after we came home from the hospital without our third baby.
The note was written in Richard’s precise, corporate style, the same language he used for commercial lease agreements.
Subject returned from the clinic at two in the afternoon, the entry read. Subject spent thirty-six hours in the bedroom with the blinds drawn, refusing meals and unable to perform basic domestic duties.
