The Saturdays She Gave Away

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1:03Time to celebrate with Jamba. Jump in at JambaCasino.com. Let's Jamba. No purchase necessary. BTW Group. Boy, we're prohibited by law. CTNC. 21 Plus. Sponsored by JambaCasino. Hello, I'm welcome to cheating all the time. Glad you are here. Let's get into this next crazy cheat. I woke up to this off-seattle grey pressing a bedroom window, fogged glass just began into glow. Most Saturdays, I'd already be nudging Emily Wake teasing her about her pillow creased face, coaxing her with a promise of coffee, fresh harnacrisp apples, sticky cinnamon rolls from Jedis Baker's stall. But today, before I could even reach for her side of the bed, she was already upstanding by the dresser. Back to me, shuffling for drawers like she'd misspoke something. I blinked to sleep out of my eyes. Hey, didn't hear the alarm. She cut me off, boys already keyed up. I know it's Farmers market day, but the shelter just called their short-handed. I have to go help now. She didn't turn around. I watched her pulling old shelter friends' teeth on the bottom of the drawer, one I hadn't seen since last summer's big sale.

2:05That tight little knot started behind my ribs. All morning, she was stuffing her wallet and phone into her purse, hair still in yesterday's ponytail. Not sure, Hannah says the kittens have another round of meds, and Goldie's surgery follow-up. I'll text you. She tried on a smile barely. I'll bring something good for dinner. I sat up, still not understanding yet, waiting for the old ritual, her sitting on the edge of the bed, grumbling about how much she wanted to sleep in, negotiating for five more minutes before our walk. She was already in the hall. I held the click of the bathroom door. Water ran. I listened, heavy with the uneasy sense that I was suddenly in the wrong story. Twenty minutes later, I was left in the kitchen with two untouched mugs of coffee at the steam from the French press curling away in silence. The sire away, my stomach turned, told me something simple, something was off. This wasn't a shell to call scramble, I remembered from years past a real emergency, a text from Hannah with all those exclamation marks, and was wide-eye apology, as she sprinted to brush her teeth, usually tripping over her shoes on her way out. Now, she barely looked at me, and the apology was procedural.

3:06Still, we'd been married for almost eight years. We'd been through far worse job layoffs, her dad's cancer that had us running on empty, and we'd always landed together tied back close. Maybe this was another brief storm, her busy season. I tried to shake off the uneasiness by fixing breakfast anyway, but she was gone before the toast popped up, her car tires crunching, overweight gravel. It felt wrong to ease alone, so I left my plate in the counter and poured her mug down the sink. I looked around her quite kitchen, the place that was supposed to feel most like home of a still set with last week's tulips, now buying and browning. I waited for the sound of her key in the lock, for any text, but nothing came. I ended up at the market anyway. It felt strange, weaving among the stands by myself, nodding at familiar vendors who'd grown used to seeing us together. At Gerda's, the cinnamon rolls look sticky and gorgeous as always, but I walked past. At Samu's garden stall, Sam recocked his head and asked, where's your boss today? Like he always did, winking at Emily, not me. She had to run a shift at the shelter, I said, more sheepish than I wanted to admit. Such a good one, your wife, tell her the lilies will keep for you both next week, H.M.

4:10He handed me a single stem. I clutched it awkwardly through the rest of the market, feeling every bit what I was, one half of a pair of mine as the other. Home again, the day stretched into a quiet, empty afternoon. It might have been a one-off, but something about her rush-voice replayed in my ears, like the modi sold at the bottom of her river you didn't realise was there. When she came home in the late afternoon, I tried to shake my mild disappointment. How'd it go? I called from the couch as she kicked off her shoes. She didn't hug me or drop her back for a debrief. She just said, long, goldies sick again, it was, the lot, and headed for the bedroom, door nearly closed behind her. I went to the kitchen, fixed coffee for two, and left hers on the counter. By the time she came out, it was cold and touched. Things weren't always like this. If I close my eyes, I can see a thousand small Saturdays, I'm shimming into her beaten-up p-coat, slipping her on through mine. This walking to the market passed puddles and swing-sets. We'd split a cinnamon roll on the bench outside jurdice, powdered sugar dusting her nose, I laughed at chasing away the mist. We'd pick a bouquet from Samyrollways, whatever weird flower made her smile, even if it turned

5:12out to be too droopy for a vase. Some days she'd race ahead to the honeystand, waving a five dollar bail above her head. We'd joke, argue over a plant's versus mushrooms, make up elaborate stories about the couples we watched from our regular perch at Barker's Café. The waitress would ask, just the usual, and we'd always say yes to up milk lattes, one split cinnamon roll. We were the couple the ones people probably rolled their eyes at. We leaned into it, nicknamed ourselves the produce patrol. In the evenings, arms heavy with garden loot, we'd crash in the couch, Netflix humming, our legs twined beneath the shed blanket. She'd fall asleep at first, half across my lap, phone falling out of her hand. It felt unshakable all those years. She told me everything her frustrations at work, off a drama, funny moment with students at the after-school group she coordinated. She texted me quick update on how lunch break, similar photos of the cut chaos at the shelter. The chaos wasn't something I even thought about. I was certain with the blind faith of shared routines and logons, until I was. The next week, it happened again, almost down to the minute.

6:14I woke up to her rushing around, not frantic, but precise hair and a bun, mascara on quickly, jeans instead of leggings. She stopped at the doorway, not looking at me. There's so much going on at the shelter today, if she said. She searched her purse for something she didn't seem to find. I'll try not to be late, but don't wait for me at the market, okay? I tried to smile. You want me to bring back a bouquet? She didn't hear or pretended not to, already sliding her phone into her back pocket. See you tonight, as she said. This time, she didn't even hint at dinner or ask for coffee. She was gone before I could protest, leaving only the sound of the front door shutting. The market looked less familiar without her. I walked the aisles without purpose, paws in front of the garden stand, stared at rouse of tulips and high-sints in the hot house lollies Samir said she liked. I nearly growled a bunch for her, but my hand stalled mid-reach. What if she didn't care anymore? What if this wasn't just a temporary thing? That night she came back smelling like the city, not hay or animals were disinfectant. Her hair wasn't smudged, her hand to a clean, and I wondered if I was just imagining

7:15the subtle age to her impatience. Long day? I asked. She gave me a tightlet smile. Yep, sorry, unjust, wiped, I might turn in early. She disappeared into the bedroom. When I followed, she was sitting at her vanity, foam-propped up between her knees. I caught just a glimpse of her screen before she hastily switched it off. I thought I saw a cafe logger. By the third week, my questions carried more weight. Are they always this desperate for we can help? I tried to sound casual, not like the hopeful version of an investigator I was rapidly becoming. Emily was brushing her hair in the kitchen. They lost some volunteers when the semester started, I guess I'm the only sucker with free time. She glanced down at her full. I'm sorry, are you mad? Not mad, just miss you. I tried to grow in, but it felt stiff. She straightened her shoulders the way she did before a tough work meeting. We'll get our Saturdays back, I promise. This time, she left behind an untouched mug of coffee, and oddly, money for bread-pinned under a magnet on the fridge. I stared at it for a long time after she left.

8:16When she returns late, with new circles under her eyes, she shuffled straight into the shower. I heard her humming. Hearing melodic and unfamiliar, a happy tune cut short when she heard the floor-wats creak. The rest of that week, I watched her move for her days half there, half somewhere else. She worked later, fiddle with her phone more, set her alarm earlier. Our old game sharing bad producer of the week finds a dumb market trivia quietly disappeared. She never brought home bread or flowers anymore. Her phone habits changed too. She started keeping it on silent at home, faced down on the coffee table. When it buzzed, she'd snatch it up and slip away to the kitchen or outside to make a call. Once I tried to joke, who's on the other end, are you running for me now? She rolled her eyes not laughing. One Saturday afternoon, I caught her looking at herself in the hallway mirror, fussing with a pair of earrings I'd never seen, adjusting the neckline of a black top before she left for her shift. Perfume, too something light and expensive. She didn't notice me watching. I almost asked then, but the words stuck behind my teeth. The first true crack in my attempt at reason came after I scrolled for Instagram while

9:18half-listened into a marina's game on mute. There on my feet was a post from Nora, one of our mutual friends from Beclubb and Tat in a group selfie at a trendy, sunnuck-fay. Five people around a small table filled with moses and french toast everyone grinning. Emily in the middle, wore a green blouse she hadn't left the house in that morning. The timestampary 1043M, that very Saturday. While she told me her double shifts at the shelter didn't end till one. My first reaction was stupid disappointment that she hadn't told me about seeing Nora, who she only saw now and then. Then, as I studied the photo, the facts rearranged themselves, the cafe was on Capitol Hill Miles from the shelter in Fremont. None of the faces were shot of volunteers I recognized from past events or group dinners. An ink pinch deep under my sternum. I pulled up a Google calendar for shelter friends, but one we'd used to get her to plan their fundraisers. According to that, Saturday was just a regular care day with fully staff shift. Volunteers were a max capacity. When I'm called to say she'd work gun-late, I try to play normal. Did you see Nora at the shelter today?

10:19I asked. Silence across the line, then. Oh, weird yeah, we kind of ran into each other, she and some folks from her yoga class were at a brunch spot near the shelter. I joined for a smoothie before heading back. Nudgellant practised. Sounds fun, I said, heart pounding. Hope the kittens are well. She laughed too quickly. Yeah, same old, same old. I wanted to believe her, but my mind splintered into one desperate for her story to add up, the other already flipping over every overlooked detail, every stray receipt, every time her hand slipped from mine out in public. All week her phone barely left her palm. She laughed at text she wouldn't show me, all left the room for a workstuff. Once I found her outside at night on the porch, whispering into her phone. I watched her through the window, her face lit blue, her eyes swimming with some private amusement. I tried to forget how she'd used to text me during these moments photos of silly cats at the shelter or a quick counting down the minister's cinnamon roll time. I checked my messages. Nothing since a single on my way the week before. On Sunday morning she slept late, curled away from me, silent but for her breathing.

11:22I reached for her, missing the warmth we used to have the easy way of her arm thrown over my waist. She stood, rolled the other way. Work was no better. My focus slept, the knowing suspicion draining me, I started searching for explanations, typing relationship routine changes partner lying into private browsing tabs. Every ounce who made my chest tighter. It was a few more weeks before I admitted to myself that I was looking really looking now for the proof I was afraid to find. One Thursday night, in return from a late staff meeting in a new soft blue blouse. He looked rest up, I said as she slid in the front door. Felicia wandered all the staff to look put together for a donut drop-in, didn't even happen typical. Her smile felt off, brittle at the edges. She carried a tote I didn't recognise as stylish pat and bag. My eyes caught a glimpse of a bakery's dick apoking out of the side pocket, the name of that capital hill cafe. On impulse, I reached for her hand as she passed, a first second she tensed, flinched almost before squeezing my fingers back, quick and perfunctory as if she could check off a box. Later, I found that stick of steel tucked into the bag in the hallway closet.

12:22I turned it over in my hands. It was for two almond corsets and a blackberry lemonade. Saturday arrived. The shelter's online schedule showed no shortage of help fully booked, even advertising a waitlist. I stared at the page until dawn, hoping for a last minute change, some valid reason for her to be gone. Still, at 7.40, she was already at the door, hair blown out tiny gold hoops in her ears, they unfamiliar perfume returning. Love you, say hi to Samir, don't forget to get more olive bread, she called, half distracted, already scrolling on her phone. Want to come with? I asked for his helpful, almost bleeding. She paused just for a second as if weighing something. Hello, it is Ryan and we could all use an extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we? Just to make up for things like sitting in traffic, doing the dishes, counting your steps, all the mundane stuff, that is why I'm such a big fan of Chamba Casino. Chamba Casino has all your favorite social casino style games that you can play for free anytime, anywhere with daily bonuses. So sign up now at chambacasino.com, that's chambacasino.com.

13:26With the American Express Platinum Card, you can access over $3,500 in annual value with benefits and eligible purchases across travel entertainment and more. There's nothing like platinum. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash explore dash platinum, enrollment requirements, monthly and other limits in terms of supply. Where? She didn't take her usual market to canvas bag, the one with all city skyline logo, only the new patent tote. I made morning, I called the shelter, telling myself I was just checking and offering to volunteer if they needed a hand. The co-ordinator on the other end, a man I'd met before, sounded cheerful. Oh, no, thanks Fridays and Saturdays or easest days, we're all set, Emily haven't seen her yet today, but she's on our Monday list, I think, I hung up with that leave in my name. I scored my phone, compulsively checking social media for any sign of where she was. Nothing. My imagination filled and gapped her at brunch someplace, her laughing with someone new, some details I couldn't control. When she came home, her cheeks flush and hair tidy, asked if she'd eat and lunch.

14:28She held up at to go box of fries too much left for one person. I picked up something near the shelter, you want some, she said lightly. I should my head. She disappeared to shower humming again. The next week, same story to phone calls, the running late, the gentle deflection. I watched her really watch her as she checked herself in any mirror before leaving, as she smiled a quiet text that she kept hidden from me. At night, we barely touched. She withdrew into herself, falling asleep stiffly on her side. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, feeling the distant stretch and stretch. Our once predictable life had cracks all through it. No more little market treasure is left in the kitchen table with post-it hearts. No more lawn, rambling stores about crunchy cats or feral kittens of the rush of an adoption finalized. She let dishes pile up. She barely asked about my day. When she smiled, it was with her mouth, not her eyes. One evening, I caught her scrolling through photos on her phone, thumbs wiping was a private, contended look. I saw a sliver of a man's hand in one shot, plate of eggs benedict, and her favorite blue mug at a table that wasn't Ios.

15:29She locked her phone when she saw me noticing. Who's that? I asked trying for playful, but my voice betrayed me. Her answer was immediate, too quick, as if already formed. Just one of Hannah's cousins, we all did brunch after volunteering. Why? I shrugged, made some vague excuse, but my hands wouldn't stop shaking. Each evening, I tried to bridge the gap to invite her back, want to watch our show, but I want to go out for dinner tomorrow, I want to come to the market on Saturday. She deflected, headaches, woke emails, just too tired babe. I found myself running errands, I didn't need to run, walking past her favorite bakery hoping to spot her. Saturday mornings, I checked the shelter parking lot on my way to the market. Her car was never there. I started cataloging oddities, new earrings, nails painted for the first time in months, and familiar lipstick put on before her supposed dirty shift. Fresh perfume lingoed in the bathroom. She told me she fixed her hair, always double checked the gold necklace that used to be reserved for date nights. I'd come home from the market to an empty house. The flowers would whither in their vase, unopened, until I finally threw them at.

16:32Once, I spied her market bag in the laundry basket, still clean and unused, a porcelain from weeks before stuck inside, blue bulls for E plus N, even her handwriting looked distant. She was emotionally gone, I realized conversation shallow, left-for-forced. I found myself feeling like a ghost in my own home, every corner haunted by scenes just out of reach. One afternoon, as I cleaned the kitchen, her purse spilled over when I moved it from the chair. I picked up the usual contents wallet, makeup receipts. That's when I noticed a small, folded square of paper stuck inside. A receipt timestamp just four days before, from the same capital hill cafe. Lunch for two. Two entrees, two coffees, and a pink sticky note with a scribbled THX for today, and on the back. I stood there, the proof in my palm, my hot thundering so loud I thought she'd hear it from the next room. Breath short, I looked up when she entered. How was work? I said, foy slight as I could manage. She didn't miss a beat. Chaos hadn't couldn't find the right meds for the ketons, so I ended up bottled feeding for iris to swear, my arms are scratched to hell.

17:34She stuck out her hands. No scratches. The team chipped in for lunch, nice gesture. I forced a smile, nodding along. In that moment, she sounded so convincing that I let myself believe her. Maybe it was just a nice lunch with shelter friends. Maybe M was a new volunteer, a thank you for covering a shift. My body wanted desperately to sink back into the old comfort to banish the seed of doubt and trust her one more time. Later that night, as I was falling into a restless sleep, I heard her quietly tapping at her phone under the covers. The blue light painted her features with secrecy. She laughed softly, softly, and sweetly, not at anything I'd said or sent. I lay awake, toned onto my side, unable to rid myself of the image of her smile so private, so unreachable. Sunday morning, the blues in our bedroom window seemed colder than ever. I kept telling myself you don't know yet. It probably not what you think. But the evidence was stacking around me, the secret phone calls, the light about schedules, the vanish flowers, and Brad, the cold coffee, every Saturday, the receipt with Em's note. My trust once easy, given without question, now fades so thin it barely held.

18:36The next week, my suspicion finally snapped into resolve. On Saturday, she left as usual, careful, with her appearance, the familiar spritz of that new perfume cloud in the air. She told me not to wait up for dinner. The moment the shower started, I hesitated at the first old of our bathroom, thinking to myself that I'd never been the kind of person to breach someone's privacy. That I should turn away, let her secrets keep, trusted to tell me the truth when she was ready. What I couldn't. My fingers shook as I picked up her phone from the bedroom vanity, still in lot from a text. My heart pounded as I scrolled through the names. Here it was, a conversation with Em the same initial as in the receipt no. Dozens of messages, all recent, most sent on for ideas and Saturdays. I scrolled, unable to stop, the cold dread crawling higher with each word. The most recent message, marked from just that morning, can't wait to see you again next Saturday, last week was perfect, sir. My sum turned over. There were photos her at brunch, her down, face off with happiness. Him a man's arm, sometimes just out of frame, sometimes holding her hand across the table.

19:36Uses back and forth, jokes and updates, and emojis I swore she'd only send to me. Now they belong to someone else. I heard the water in the bathroom cut off abruptly. I locked the phone and placed it back exactly where I found it, hands trembling. I sat on the edge of the bed, the realization so heavy it felt like a physical blow. So this is what betrayal feels like. That night, and all those before it, I lay silent, emotionless as Emily slipped under the covers beside me, each of us turned to our own edge of the bed. I stared at the shadow play on the ceiling, unable to imagine what would come next. I couldn't picture how our market Saturdays had led to this or how the woman beside me with a secret smile and careful perfume had grown so far away. But I knew, at last, that the old life we built those soft golden mornings, the laughter, the flowers was already gone. All that remained was the confrontation, now waiting between us heaviest silence. It gets stranger how easy it is to live alongside something you recognize only by its absence. The week after reading those messages, I fell into a kind of haze. Every interaction with Emily pecked at the royal places I tried to hide.

20:37I would look up from my book and find her lost in her phone, biting back smile. If I asked what it was, she'd tuck the screen away, brush hair behind her ear, and say, all just I'd be sending me cat means. Her voice at a practice brightness, and I started cataloging which doors matched the reality I'd already glimpse, which one's crumbled as soon as she spun them out. We moved through our old habits with the slack air of actors clinging to the wrong lines. I caught her humming as she straightened her hair before work, something peppy and just out of tune. A new melody. I'd never heard her hum like that except the old familiar love of our silly producer troll song, invented just for the two of us. Now it fell out of reach. That Wednesday, she came home late, grocery bags swinging from her wrist, cheeks flushed as if she'd brisk walked the whole way from the car. Sorry, last minute staff meeting, I ran by QFC like I promised. She pulled out yogurt and apples tossed me a plastic wrap because of Ron Bickery, not but I said thank you anyway. Everything okay at work? I tried watching her face for a flicker, a tell. She shrugged, spinning your ring on her finger.

21:37Yeah, fellish as driving as hard since the grant came through, but whatever, I'll survive. A pause is if remembering something she ought to say, how was your day? Fine, I answered, though it felt like a code for what we'd stopped asking, what we would both too tired to find out. She pulled out her phone to check a message, the screen catching my eye just a flash of a name, and then it was gone. Her thumb moved quickly. I let the opportunity to ask Slipaway, shame moving cold through my gut. Maybe she noticed my hesitation. We can do a movie night if you want, I'm pretty wiped there. She didn't wait for an answer, just kicked off her shoes and drifted toward the bedroom, leaving her phone abandoned on the counter. I watched it. I could have picked it up. I didn't. The market that Saturday was bright with late spring air at mornings finally warm enough to carry a coffee outside without shivering. I dressed with the old hope, my jacket already waiting, but Emily was up first, her phone in hand as she paced the hole. She wore fitted jeans, that Navy raincoat I'd bought her for her birthday last year, a little gold locket she hadn't worn since our last anniversary. The faint line of fresh lipstick colored her mouth.

22:40I tried to remember if she'd worn it during our Saturday's together. Maybe she had and I'd missed it. Maybe not. She checked her phone again, and again then it ate two announced, the shelves were swamped apparently, can you grab eggs and greens if you go, I really owe you. She didn't even look up as she grabbed her tote and keys, puffing trailing behind her as she left. I washed her walko. Something in her step was letter, more eager than I'd seen in months, at a part of me hated that. It wasn't for me. I locked the door behind her at listening to the fade of her cut down the street, the quiet of a home holding its breath. At the market, semis mile, but his usual bus will fell to beat forest. No masse with you, tell her my wife needs her market secrets. Busy again, I said carefully. He got down at a bunch of lilacs shrugged and started tidying his stand. I moved on, barely noticing the other vendors, buying what she'd asked but feeling every item and afterthought. Back home, the lilies from last week were brown at the edges, and her coffee mug was where I'd left it the ring of yesterday's grand-scaling into the glass. I still myself checked her location, reasoning it was only because she once asked me to

23:42in case she locked her keys in her car. The blue drop pulls not at the shelter but closer to Pike. My heart seized. I shut off the phone, disgusted with myself, but not enough to stop. She came home after two cheeks pink, not to smudge on her clothes. A paper bag from a bakery, I didn't know a dangle from her fingers. Her voice was almost too bright, I saw back at the day she stopped by the shelter to drop off towels, I grabbed her some pastries from her favorite place. She set the bag on the counter. The label, a fancy script, read Mason Lilla. I'd never heard of it, never tasted as bright in all our years of Saturdays. But I played along, slicing the pastry in half as she went to shower. I heard her giggle quietly through the door, water running. It was always like that her laughter carrying into the corners where I wasn't allowed. Later, folding laundry, I found in her to another receipt, same affairs before, two cappuccinos, two plates. It was stated that morning. I almost brought it into the bedroom, flung it down on the comforter, demanded answers, but the cove of tension in my chest held me back. How much worse would it be, I wondered if she had already answered again some plausible

24:43ordinary explanation that twisted me back into doubt. So I waited the evidence piling like dust in closed rooms. That evening, a stunder threatened beyond the kitchen window, she perched beside me in the couch, scrolling her phone while I watched the mariners get shut up in extra names. Her messages as always out of sight and unlocked. I tested the waters. Did Becca say if she'll be back next week, I haven't seen her in forever. She nodded, still half smiling at something on her film. She's so busy now, her new job takes her everywhere, but she loves the kittens, she'll always find time, maybe we can all have brunch next time or free. Her voice was casual, I had too slow on the delivery. And I wondered, for a long moment, if she'd meant to suggest I come to or if the offer was a shield, a way to keep me from looking too closely. What I reached for her hand, she let it rest in mine, cool and limp as press petals. The next few days were a lesson in maintenance, I helped think- No purchase necessary, VTW Group, point-word prohibited by law, CCNC, 21-plus, sponsored

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26:52wrapped inside. For you, she said. Just because I saw it and thought you'd like it. Inside, an avi-blue knit cap like the one I'd lost last fall, and a cow print of tiny gold stars. She's written to my favorite market hunter, next year we'll get all the best apples together, I promise. He'll scalded me hers for leaving, mine for not confronting her. I thank her, pulling her clothes, and for an instant her arms tightened around my waist, just like they used to. The moment was overfast. She stepped away, eyes shifting to her phone, which was again persistent and low. That sounded a morning thunder rolled, as she flinched when it sounded above the houses across the street. I watched her go through her routine, mascara, perfume, all jeans trade of freddress, new boots. Overkill for cat cages, I thought, not for the first time. I tried. Storm looked rough out there, one company in the drive. She hesitated, lips parting only a second before the familiar answer. It won't take long, besides, you should enjoy your morning, a week's mile. She was at the door before I could put on socks.

27:53I spent the morning at spooling my own paranoia. I flipped through our old photo albums, market mornings two years apart, her with a daisy crown, me grinning with breadcrumbs in my beard. My fingers hovered over her name on my phone, wanting to call, to ask something real. But what would I say? Who is he? They're how long? Am I stupid? We're just unlucky. Instead, at noon, I drove out the shelter. The parking lot was barely occupied, no sign of her car. I didn't get out, but I watched the clouds move over the glass doors, everything empty, they're quiet. It was raining harder, where I returned home, water collecting, imputtles along the walk. I checked my phone anywhere, haunted by its silence. When she came in at two thirty, she carried nothing but her own toe, a faint trace of a sweet perfume layered over coffee. Someone came and went. Sunday slipped past with half-hearted errands, black conversation over pasta neither of us really ate. She watched TV, feet tucked under her, phone always angled out of sight. I cleaned a kitchen, the were of the dishwasher hiding my own sharp breaths. Another week, another pattern.

28:53She slipped away Saturday different earrings, a soft white sweater, more perfume, lit pressed together as she waved goodbye. My chest ached with the kind of dull certainty. At the market, I stopped at Sammer's again, managed a half-hearted joke. I think my wife will ever come back for the good flowers. He smiled, but the knowing look was gone. We miss her, he said quietly. Me too, I said. At home, my well-truck to the apartment, the hum of the fridge, the echo of my own steps in the tile. The only evidence of outside life came in her absence, the way she seemed to rumour in her own home, busy with secret, careful with every detail. That Saturday evening, a message slipped out. I watched her set her, fallen down in the bedroom, heard the telltale pain again. She stepped into the shower, voice humming something high and lie. I cracked, picked up her phone, screened already unlocked, and opened the thread with them. Their exchange was a world apart from our own. Photos of city views, capital hill rooftops, bright plates of food, selfie of her, lips purged, eye shining, hair-cold the way she used to only for big nights up. His messages little poems inside jokes, can't wait for us, bought next time.

29:56Let's try the bakery you mentioned all-boyant, familiar, intimate in a way that made my throat ache. One of her lust replies, worse things were simpler. I think about you all the time, miss last Saturday. I scroll, heart hammering, until the sound of water stopped. I set the phone down, returned to the doorway, somehow acting as if I'd been folding sheets the whole time. She opened the door, told twisted hair, cheeks lush. She smiled, and I felt myself retreat somewhere far away inside. The next days passed in a series of small tests her watching her phone in the bathroom, her distracted, half-hearted laughter, my own reluctance to press, as if naming the truth allowed would make it final. I had every glance at the device, every shelter shift, every new oddity was its own confirmation. One afternoon, I heard her on the phone, low voiced in a living room while she thought I was still in the shower. I wrapped my towel tighter, stopped just out of sight. Her voice was gentle, almost hesitant, sat her day works for me, unless you want Sunday instead. But pause. I know, I miss you too, I'll wear the blue if you bring your stupid hat. She laughed softly, catching herself with a hand over her mouth when she sensed movement

30:56in the hole. She slid her phone into her pocket, face a stud of mask as she turned to me. My mom just reminded me to check on her hospital bell, I nodded my mouth dry. Tell her hi. She watched me for a second, as if uncertain how much I'd heard. I retreated to the bedroom, shaking. Tuesday after dinner, the phone vibrated as she was loading the dishwasher. I reached for it to hand over her, but she stepped between us, taking it from my hands so quickly I nearly dropped a plate. Work thing, she said, barely even glancing at me as she thumbed open the message. Flushes frantic about overtime logs. I wanted a shut to demand to make her sit and tell me everything. But all I could do was stand there, water dripping from my hands, a chasm opening among the ordinary routines. That night she took her phone to the bathroom and didn't return for half an hour. In bed, she lay on her side, phone prop against her knee texting someone, the blue glow flickering over her face. I lay beside her, staring at the dark, tracing the outline of her shoulder with my eyes. She was present, but not with me. I wondered if she noticed when I shifted to the far edge, called in on myself.

31:59On Thursday, I saw her slip-coded to her purse as she left for work-white, golden-boss, the same lettering as before, Mason Leela. She tucked a scarf around her neck, paused in the hallway mirror, running a finger down the bridge of her nose, smiling privately. Early meeting, she said as she leaned into kiss my cheek. She smiled of peaches and something new, something sharper, clean and sophisticated. Have a good one. She nodded, already at the door, her phone ringing as she opened it. I'll call you later, okay. She did, but briefly a check in more than a conversation, her answer shallow, surface-level punctuated by a distracted hum every time she checked her messages. I knew the rhythms too well to mistake them now. By Friday, I was exhausted, constantly in my own head, running through every possible scenario from the imagined innocent to the quietly devastating. I thought about warning her, telling her I knew, giving her a chance to confess on her own. But every time I saw the tire, or the smile meant for someone else, I lost my nerve. Not evening, sorting laundry, I found one more tiny slip. In her jeans pocket, I note scrap torn from a restaurant bill, just in name and a heart

33:00and bluink. MSR-10 love this. The rest to jumble, and address I didn't recognize. When she came home, I tried, wanted to do something, just as tomorrow, skip everything, go to the market, get breakfast outside, like old times. She paused mid-step, caught off guard by the suggestion. Her eyes flickered, moth open. The shoulders really short-handed, maybe Sunday morning, that way we're not crowded. I nodded, letting her think I believed it. Sure, Sunday. She smiled a small apologetic curve that barely touched her eyes. That night, as we got into bed, I heard her phone vibrate under her pillow. She slated out, pressing the button to mute screen, but the light was visible, urgent. She read the message, face-offening, for a second she forgot I was there at all. I turned away, listening to the sound of her breathing, letting the icy realization settle in my own bones. The truth was no longer shy or shyly hidden. It was everywhere, all at once. That Saturday, Sunday's found me out of bed before her, as heavy, no appetite for breakfast. I sat at the table, listless, turning the receipt from Asyn Lila in my hands.

34:03She emerged, dressed already, hairbraded carefully, as bright the way they get when she's lying. She glanced at me, checked her phone, caught herself smiling, and straightened her lips. Feed the neighbors cat if you get a chance, I promised her I would incase I run late. I said I would. She looked me over, as if about to say something else then didn't. Her keys jingled, her perfume hung soft in the foyer, and she left just like that. I watched the street until her card disappeared, then set the flowers from last week into the compost, every stem gone slack, petals browning. In this silence the followed, I realized two things at once, I had all the proof I would ever need, and I couldn't let this light keep stretching. But for one more afternoon, I said nothing. Instead, I sat where we'd always sat together, spinning the blue cap, she'd given me between my fingers, listening for her presence in the empty house. Ticking of the kitchen clock, the creek in the floorboard by the stove, the ghost of laughter near the front door, it was all too quiet, a soundless emptiness waiting, heavy, as the storm finally broke outside. I stayed at the kitchen table for a long time after she left, the receipt opened under my palm the flowers from last week discarded in the compost.

35:05I turned the slip of paper over and over, the press pin cut from M now smudged beneath my thumb. The silence inside the apartment felt tighter than ever before concentrated, waiting. Not the comfortable hush of morning market days, just a thick, suffocating stoneness. I felt flattened, muscle less split between exhaustion, and an animal trembling alertness. Ever sound the heater clicking on, a bus rattling by two blocks away made my skin jump. I couldn't sit still, so I cleaned. Wipe down the kitchen counters and the inside of the fridge, emptied the trash, methodically collected every old flower stem, bakery bag, stray posted a note in the house. I put all of them in one panicked heap on the table, evidence of days when I hadn't recognised what was happening to my own life. It was all there, chirping made up chores, smiling lies, little emissions like sharp seas catching in my throat. Each bit of debris felt heavier than a brick. My phone sat face on beside me, I kept expecting her to text some excuse, another apology ahead of time, maybe a casual running late, get eggs that dared me to call her bluff. But nothing came. The longer the silence stretched, the more certainty pressed down.

36:06Not only was she not at the shelter, she was with someone else. Not a slip. Not an accident. A whole other world, built deliberately from these blue and green and gold scraps I'd so wanted to trust. As the eye was called by, anger started to pulse under the dull egg in my chest. Something had shifted. For months I dreaded exactly this what I do when I finally knew. Now, knowing I didn't feel wise or prepared. I felt cornered. The drama of shouting was slamming a door of stormy out seam childish, but every polite impulse not to make a scene die to way to. All that was left was a compulsion, I had to see it to the end. To Nile wasn't possible anymore. I've already in a confrontation didn't protect me from the reality, and if I stayed silent another day, I'd only start to disappear inside my own home. Around one, my phone buzzed. Only a single message, hey love, can you feed Luna for me, might run late, so. For a moment I thought about replaying sure, hope the kittens are okay but when I tried to type my handshift too badly and I raced it. I couldn't eat lunch. I made coffee, poured it out and touched.

37:07I kept standing up, moving through the living room out to the hall, back to the kitchen over and over as if atreasing my old Saturday routine would conjure her back to the ways she used to be. Instead, every sound the building made the elevator, the stair door only made me flinch, waiting for her key in the lock, dreading what would come next. Around three, I heard her on the landing. I saw her silhouette through the frosted glass, a careful pause, reapplying lipstick, fixing her hair. I watched her smile at her own reflection in the dark pain of the door recognisably my wife and yet someone else, a stranger gilded by secrets. When the door opened, I was sitting at the table. No preamble, no greeting. She sat down her toad, humming a little still caught in whatever pleasure she thought she could carry him with her. She didn't notice the receipts all stacked on the table or the flowers gone, where the kitchen perfectly meticulously clean. Hey, she called to a beat. She looked around, finally noting the unusual order, the tension. You okay? You look tired. I studded her face. The little touches she thought I wouldn't see nicer earrings, her favorite perfume faded down to the skin, a flush high on her cheeks that-

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39:11podcasts. To nothing to do with Animal Dander, I heard myself speak, Comba, Metallic. Where were you just now? She blinked, startled. The shelter, I told you, why? No, you weren't, I know you weren't. I pushed the receipts toward her, the text thread with M fresh in my mind, every message and accusation between us. She looked at the evidence and for a split second, her composure waived a visible flash of fear and calculation. Why are you going through my stuff? Her voice was sharp, defensive, the edge more shocked than angry. Her eyes flicked to her phone as if she thought she could erase everything between us with a single swipe. I didn't move. Why have you been lying to me every weekend for months? My hands were steady on the table, palms flat. Just tell me. Her mouth twisted, hunting for a safe answer. I haven't. You're taking things out of context. I volunteer, sometimes I get coffee after. Her voice cracked over rehearsed, worn out from too many lies. My heart was pounding now, but it wasn't fear anymore. It was fear being made to beg for the truth. You don't get dressed up like that for shelter cats.

40:12You haven't stepped foot in the market in months. You lied about seeing nor it lied about brunch. You left me sitting here every single Saturday believing you. She straightened, letting her tote drop with a thud. You're invading my privacy. You had no right to look at my texts if you just trusted me. Trust? The word came out as a laugh. You took every bit of trust and dug it out of me, who the hell is him? She flinched, finally. The colour drained from her face. For one second I saw her as I used to a human being, full of panic and gill, not just some abstract portrayal. She opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again. It's not what you think she managed, forcing Bravado that fell apart halfway through the sentence. He's just a friend I needed someone to talk to. Cut it up, I said, struggling to hold the lion not to shout. You were having an affair. I've read the messages, Emily, you left me behind every single week. Why? She slumped into the nearest chair, hands covering her face. She let out a shuddering breath. I'm sorry, she whispered us a quiet I barely believed it was real. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it wasn't supposed to happen, it just so felt so I can't explain.

41:15I said unable to summon any pity. So you lied to my face. Did I marriage me nothing? What was so wrong you couldn't tell me? My voice shook at the end, the emotion burning ragged into my throat. She dropped her hands, tears at the corners of her eyes, mascar smudging. He don't see me anymore, all you want is the same thing, week after week, I was lonely. He listened, he made me feel. She cut herself off. I know it's awful, I know I've wrecked everything. For a minute neither of us spoke. The words hung in the space between us, heavy with the unmistakable, final clarity that comes after months of denial. Aside, another storm rolled through, rain rattling the windows. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and when she looked at me her gaze was hollow. I didn't want to hurt you, I swear I never wanted that, but I can't I don't love you the same anymore, I don't know how to fix it, she said, for shredded to pieces. I felt something like go inside me, a rusty latch breaking open. I stood, suddenly cold with conviction. There's nothing to fix and I need you to leave. I barely recognize my own voice it was flat, final. She stared, sharp flashing across her face, mouth opening and closing searching for something

42:19to say, some way to patch the impossible. But there was nothing left. After a moment she stood to, brushing at her cheeks, breathing in ragged bursts. She didn't plead, not really. She just moved normally through the apartment, gathering a sweater or tote, her phone charging cable as if in a days. The mess of receipts and bolted petals and broken promises remained spread in the kitchen table between us and touched the border of a life that had already collapsed. I watched her move through the motions bend into tie her shoes, shoulder shaking, keys trembling in her grip. She looked at me once, opening her mouth to say something, but no words came. I didn't offer any comfort. I couldn't. I just waited, arms crossed, a frozen witness to our shared and doing. The door opened, a rush of rain tinged air coming in from the hallway. She hesitated at the threshold, gave me one last, ruffle look, eyes red, then stepped out, closing the door gently behind her. Her footsteps faded down the hall, then nothing. The room felt instantly larger, emptier, thick with the ache of absence and the open wound of what had just happened. For a while, I just stood motionless in a quiet apartment, barely breathing, the sense

43:21of finality drumming inside my chest. The air felt too still, a light's too bright. I took shaky stalk of the chaos left behind, the ghost of her perfume lingered in the hall, the rain rattled more urgently at the windows, and the last ricks of afternoon light sounded across the brown petals in the table. I walked over and picked up the market-tote terrors, faded blue, city-scale line-half peeled away. It was lighter than I remembered. I carried it to the kitchen table, setting it at the next to the crumple receipts and the pink sticky note that detried as left behind by both of us. I dropped the keys she used for the neighbor's cat inside one concrete act, the tiniest gesture toward order in a mess I never asked for. I sat down across from the wreckage of our rituals, let my hands rest in my lap, and stayed for a long time at the evidence of the life we'd bill, now quietly decimated. No plans, no pleas, no waiting for some next revelation just me, at our table, the silence of an old had to finally run out. The quiet, held steady air. The only thing left was the fading sand of tulips, drifting up from the scraps on the table as a lost rainstorm of the season purse against the glass, and I let it all empty out. There was nothing else.

44:22The minutes after Emily left didn't cool less into anything as grand as clarity or relief. This simply passed, slick and cold, thick with the echo of her footsteps. I found myself listening, expecting her to turn back, rush and sobbing, beg forgiveness, or even rage at me, anything but the emptiness she actually left. Instead, only the rattle of the storm and the hush of our apartment stretching its new, jagged boarder filled the space between the walls. My lugs ache to stand and move, but I stayed where I was, locked in place out of inertia more than anything delivered. A lamp flickered as the weather worsened. I watched the clock, not sure whether I was counting minutes in hope or dread. I reflex, I checked my phone. There was nothing in no new messages, no missed calls, no I'm sorry or can we talk. Not even a ping from group chats that once made up our social world. I caught my own reflection in a black screen, and Javan, eyes rinned with red, haunted and older than I'd felt that morning. Slowly, the apartment re-materialized around me, everything dim and doubly familiar, tainted now. Her coat still hung by the door, a discarded bobby pinchon faintly on the sink.

45:22I walked to rooms, seeing her absence like a burn mark. Every evidence of ordinary life felt like a prop without his actor. The toothpaste tubes, books in the night's den, shunned through bottles clumped in the back to bed. I found an earring one of the new ones, with a green glass bead sitting beside the bed. I picked it up and laid it on her pillow, feeling intrusive and foolish, but unable to help myself. The sheet still held the faintest perfume, or reminded that intimacy used to be so simple, so unspitious. I wandered back to the kitchen, gravity pulling at every joint. The fridge rattled. Far off, thunder rolled and rolled, making the windows tremble. I stood with the tote and her keys, then stowed them in the closet, wanting nothing visible that still belonged to her. Even the smallest thing tugged at some thread inside me every sound, every scent, every item left behind an echo of a betrayal that still didn't feel entirely real or finished. I tried to think practically the mind's grambles for normalcy even at the height of crisis. I pictured her at some friend's house or in the car, dialing him or her mother, running for her own wreckage of explanations. Their befollowed friends would ask her family would want reasons.

46:25There might be tears, there might be rage. My mind flickered through the future in a nauseous fast, forwarded dividing bank accounts, telling my mother and subscribing her from grocery trackers, crossing her name off contact this for potlucks or trivia nights. None of it helped. I only ended up soaking the kitchen table until my knees hurt, unable to bring myself to clear the surface or throw anything away. Even came. I washed my hands mechanically, wiped the counters again. I found myself microwaving soup, pouring it and eaten down the drain five minutes later. Every plan for what to do next felt grotesquely performative change the locks, call a friend, start couging lawyers so I did nothing. Just watch the clouds break and manned, counter the seconds between flashes and thunder, made myself small and enormous absence how leaving created. After an hour, the apartment had the still smell of a hospital waiting room. Still I couldn't bear to open a window, couldn't let out the ghost of her perfume in the trace vegetable rot from old market flowers. I forced myself to take out the trash, walking it down the hallway in silence, listening for her on the stairs, hoping she was standing outside. The corridor and the elevator were both empty, and the building the whole well beyond felt

47:28oddly muffled. Back inside, something in me started to circle back, poking deliberately at the ache maybe just to keep it moving. That goes consequences what else was coming. Would her friend nor tax, asking what happened? Would Samara at the market send home flowers with me next week for your wife, not knowing the fracture? Would anyone know who was to blame? I tried to rehearse the explanations but none fit everything sounded cheap and thin and I wasn't interested in making this tidy for anyone's sake. I picked up the market totagay and this time pulling out a crumpled receipt hidden at the bottom. Another brunch for two, another date after a fake shelter shift. Although Saturday she'd left we behind, never intending to come back the same. I wondered how much of her affair had played out at our old haunts, how many of our rituals she'd tried on with someone new. The thought burned hot and bitter. Yet there was nothing left to find out, nothing that would help. The certainty was complete, sickening in its final form. I drifted through our living room, the pale traces of her decorating still obvious, the yellow throw pillow sunshine insurance, the faded prints from our trip to Vancouver.

48:28I gathered up the laundry she'd left on the arm of the couch and dumped it in the basket, then pulled my own coat out of the closet and left hers untouched. Each gesture felt both weightless and dense, as if playing house in the ruins could actually make the Alice poisonous. It was fully dark by then the intermittent lightning showing my reflection in the market window. My face startled me, jaw set as hard mother slash. I realised suddenly how tired I was. One was the last time I'd slept a full night through, unburdened by suspicion, not waiting for the sound of her photo of the lies in her morning voice. The memory stopped into my chest, the two of us, huddled under an awning in a storm less than a year ago, laughing into each other's necks as rain battered the city. The egg now was only betrayal, it was grief for something so firmly, desperately lost that it made me sway in place. For a second, I pressed my palm into my eyes and tried to shout it out the whole day, the last months, the sound of her voice twisting something ordinary into a lie then gave up. When I finally made myself move, it was as if by root. I poured another cup of coffee that I didn't want, sat again at the kitchen table, the receipts and decay petals array beside me like a relict display.

49:30I didn't touch them. I just watched my breath fog them log, listened to the fridge murmur, the world at side sweeping itself further and further away. I gathered the silence around me, let the gust of wind fast to windows, and tried to hold very, very still less than anything else inside me broke. Later, much later, I turned off the lights and walked the apartment once more. No sign of her. Her presence was fading fast, her voice no longer echoing in my mind, her laughter nowhere to be heard. With me, the walls, the objects we chosen together, everything settled and revocable. I cleared the table finally, placing each receipt in an envelope, folding the notes sweeping crumb and petal and market token into the trash. I set the market tot now finally empty by the door. I clicked off the kitchen light and stood in the blue grey dusk, staring into the room as if waiting for some sign that the storm had moved on. The silence this time has different lesson accusation, more an exhausted piece. The world outside rumbled on. I let myself simply exist, the egg-dolled, my hands resting on the smooth, empty surface of the table. The absence had its own solidity, a shape that would not be filled, but it was honest

50:31nothing false remained. I sat there at the table where we always sorted flowers and bread after the market, staring at the last receipt, the silence deeper than any words. The centre-tool looked one last time, and then nothing. And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next one. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing, another checkered flag for the books. Time to celebrate with Jamba. Jump in at JambaCasino.com. Let's Jamba. No purchase necessary. VTW Group. Boy, we're prohibited by law. CCNC. 21 Plus. Sponsored by JambaCasino. Hey, I'm Josh Spiegel, host of the podcast, Lunatic in the newsroom. If you enjoy journalism that drifts into mild panic, wild overthinking, and a guaranteed nervous breakdown, Lunatic in the newsroom is for you. It's news like you've never heard before. The only newsroom with a panic button, you'll laugh, you'll cry, and gasp and horror

51:34as the show spirals completely out of control. It's not just news, it's emotionally unstable. Lunatic in the newsroom. Listen today.