My wedding ring is on his nightstand next to a glass of water and a torn condom wrapper, and I need to leave in 4 minutes.
“Stay.” “I can’t— I can’t stay, Jonah.” I pull my shirt over my head and check the microwave clock because he doesn’t own a bedside clock or a headboard.
His bed is a twin mattress pushed against the wall of a studio in Port Chester that costs $1,400 a month, and I know that because I asked and immediately wished I hadn’t.
“You— you know I can’t.” “Just— five more minutes.
That’s all.” “Five minutes is how I end up back in your shower, and then I’m 40 minutes late and Grant actually looks up from his phone long enough to ask where I’ve been, and I have to use Nina’s name for the third time in a row.” He sits up in the sheets and the sheets are Target brand, same thread count I keep in my guest bathroom, the one nobody uses.
His are cleaner though because he washes them every 2 days.
He told me that while I was naked and catching my breath, and it made me laugh, and the laughing turned into kissing, and the kissing is the reason I’m scrambling for my bra right now.
“You could— I mean, you could tell him the truth.” “Which truth?” I find the bra between his bed frame and the wall, 6 inches of space because the bed takes up the whole room.
“That I’ve been fucking my son’s second-grade teacher for 6 weeks, or that the reason I’m fucking him is because my husband hasn’t touched me with both hands since September?” He flinches at the math rather than the word.
“Six weeks,” he says, quieter, like he’s just now hearing it out loud.
“Six Tuesdays, six Thursdays, minus the one you rescheduled for parent conferences while I sat in the school parking lot for 20 minutes not knowing where else to go.” I hook my bra and pull my hair free from the strap.
“So yeah.
Six weeks.” “I didn’t— I didn’t cancel, I rescheduled.” “I know.” “I’m just saying, I didn’t—” “I know, Jonah.” I grab my phone off the counter next to his French press and the coffee grounds he never cleans out of the sink.
The swim team photo is on the fridge and the Hopper print I bought him 2 weeks ago hangs above his desk, and if that doesn’t tell you how far gone I am then the condom wrapper on the nightstand should finish the conversation.
“Milo thinks I’m at Nina’s.” “Your 7-year-old thinks you’re at Nina’s apartment at 4:00 in the afternoon?” “My 7-year-old thinks Mr.
Priestley is just his favorite teacher who comes to the house twice a week for extra math and reads him books about dinosaurs, so yeah, he believes whatever I tell him because he’s 7 and he trusts me.” I shove my phone in my back pocket.
“I need you to not make that face right now.” “What— what face?” “The one where you feel guilty and turned on at the same time.” He laughs, and I hate that I love his laugh, that I can tell the difference between this one and his classroom laugh.
This one is quiet and real and just for me.
Grant doesn’t laugh at anything I say, hasn’t in years.
He nods and scrolls and says “that’s funny, Margaux” without looking up from whatever deal is keeping him at the office until 9:00, and the distance between that and what Jonah just did is the entire reason I drive 20 minutes to Port Chester twice a week.
“What if— what if Diane saw your car?” he asks, pulling on his sweatpants.
“She’s at the school until 5:00 most days, and if she ever figures out where I live…” “Diane Chen does not know where you live, Jonah.” “She knows what car you drive, though.” “Every mother at Whitfield knows what car I drive.” I check my reflection in his bathroom mirror, which is the size of a dinner plate and has a crack across the bottom corner.
“That’s why I park a block over.” “That’s not what I— I just don’t want you getting caught because of me.” “I’m not gonna get caught because of you.” I tug my collar straight.
“If I get caught, it’ll be because of me.” “Come here.” “I have— I have 3 minutes.” “Come here for 1.” I go to him because I always go to him, and his hands settle on my waist over my shirt, warm and rough from years of chlorine and pool decks, and he kisses me and I taste coffee and guilt and I kiss him back harder than I mean to and his mouth opens against mine and I’m 34 years old and married and my wedding ring is sitting on his nightstand 6 feet away from us and my son drew a picture of Mr.
Priestley on the fridge at home wearing a red cape because Milo thinks his teacher is a superhero, and that teacher’s hands are on my ass right now and I don’t move them.
“I really— I really have to go.” “I know.” “Tomorrow’s Wednesday, so I can’t…
Thursday.
After tutoring.” “Same as always.” “Same as always.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and his thumb drags across my jaw and I let him because I don’t know how to not let him, and if Grant ever found out that I drive to Port Chester twice a week to get fucked on a twin mattress by a 26-year-old teacher who makes less in a year than the handbag in my car, he wouldn’t yell, he’d just go quiet and Grant going quiet is worse than any man I’ve ever heard scream.
“Text me when you get home,” Jonah says at the door.
“I always text you.” “I know, I just…
I wanna know you got there safe.” I put my palm flat on his chest, over his heart, over warm skin.
Then I pick up my ring from the nightstand and drop it in my pocket and leave before I say anything I can’t take back.
I take the stairs two at a time because the elevator barely works and the hallway smells of carpet cleaner and someone else’s dinner, and I’m half a flight down when his door clicks shut behind me.
My car is a block over because I’m careful.
A careful cheating woman in a white Audi Q7 that costs more than Jonah makes in 6 months, and the irony has not let up once in 42 days.
I drive past Whitfield Academy on the way home, past the stone buildings and the faculty lot where his dark blue Civic sits 5 days a week.
Six weeks ago I sat in a plastic chair in Room 204 while he showed me Milo’s reading scores and his knee was close to mine under the table and he walked me to my car after and his hand brushed my elbow, just his fingers on the inside of my arm, barely there, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t turn it off, couldn’t stop replaying it like a song I hated and wanted on repeat at the same time.
I spent that night folding Grant’s shirts and checking Milo’s homework and sleeping in a king bed that smelled clean and empty.
The next morning I texted the number on the tutoring flyer and said I’d love to discuss Milo’s progress over coffee, and we both knew that wasn’t what I meant, and we had coffee for 2 hours that afternoon, and I drove to his apartment that evening and didn’t leave for 3 hours.
I turn onto Winding Ridge Road.
The house sits at the end, crushed stone driveway circling 6,000 square feet of colonial revival silence that I married into at 26, back when I thought a man who put a ring on my finger would also give me a reason to keep wearing it.
Grant’s Porsche is in the driveway.
He’s never home this early on a Tuesday, not by 4:30, not during market hours when he’s at the office being whatever version of himself he saves for people who aren’t me.
I park behind his car and pick up my phone.
Three texts from Jonah, and I haven’t deleted them.
come back I mean it I miss you and you left four minutes ago and I know how that sounds I always delete before I pull into the driveway, every single time, because being careful is the only thing standing between this life and the bomb I’ve been building underneath it.
Today I forgot and Grant is home and I haven’t deleted them and I can still taste Jonah’s coffee on my teeth.
I delete all three and put the phone facedown and slide the ring back onto my finger and look at the front door.
My shirt is tucked, my hair is clean because I keep a travel shampoo in the glove box, and if my husband is in the kitchen right now I’ll smile and ask about his day and he’ll say fine and I’ll say fine and that word has been holding the Cavender marriage together through sheer fucking repetition for 3 years now.
I tuck my hair behind my left ear because I’m about to lie, and I get out of the car.