I can’t keep putting off this phone call, but jeez do I hate the wait times, and having to fight with the automated system. It makes me feel like a maniac. Ah well, guess there’s no time like the present. Straightening my spine, and squaring my shoulders, I ease my lanky form off of the couch. Padding my sock covered feet over the cool hardwood floors to make my way to the kitchen where our downstairs phone is hanging on the wall.

I pick the phone up and am about to dial the number when whispered voices give me pause. “Where the hell is that coming from?” I mumble, craning my neck to look all around the kitchen with the phone still in my hand. Shaking my head when no bogeymen appear, figuring the crazy must have begun already, and the call hasn’t even been placed. Holding the phone to my ear I hear that I wasn’t so crazy after all, my husband is already on the phone.

Relief instantly washes over me when I realize this means I get to put off making the call again. Just as I was about to hang up the receiver, the desperation in my husband’s voice made me want to stick around.

“I told you I can’t do that right now, please just give me some more time.”

“You have had enough time, do it now, or you will regret what comes next from the afterlife.” Said a disgruntled voice I didn’t recognize. Which was really strange to me because I know all of his friends, family, and associates. Or so, I thought.

“After everything I have done, after all we have been, how can you say this to me?”

Is he…crying? What is happening? Who even is this?!

Scoffing the voice replied “that was then, and this is now. You knew what it was, no one forced you into anything. Your hysterics are doing absolutely nothing for you. Now make a decision before I hang up.”

“I—I can’t, please, please,p-“

“Hush your pathetic sniveling! You have forced my hand.”

“No, wait! Just let me please let me tell her in my own way before you do anything. Please. You owe me that much.”

Tell her, tell who? Who’s her? Not me, please don’t let it be me. At this point I am holding the phone so tight that my fingers ache.

“I don’t owe you anything, but so be it. What happens next is on you.”

With that last menacing statement the line goes dead, leaving me listening to the soft sobbing of the love of my life. It feels like there is an elephant sitting on my chest, dropping a heaving deuce onto my stomach. I think I’m going to be sick. How could I have missed the signs? Is he cheating, who is he really? We spend almost all of our time together, there are no secrets between us. In our nineteen years of marriage I’ve only ever seen him cry once, and that was from a death in the family. This groveling broken man, is someone I don’t know.

“Mia?”

I still hadn’t hung up the phone, and must have made a noise. Not bothering to respond I run as fast as my legs can take me. Out of the kitchen, out of our home, and away from his lies.