"Of course you talk."
"Not like that."
Another silence.
"Does he know you're married?"
"Yes."
"Does he know me?"
"He's met you."
That was true.
Six months earlier, Clara's company had held a summer event at a rooftop restaurant. I had shaken Logan's hand. He was thirty-four, maybe thirty-five. Dark hair. Athletic. Friendly in the polished way of someone skilled at making new people comfortable.
He had complimented my watch.
I had bought him a drink.
The memory turned acidic.
"Has he told you he has feelings for you?"
Clara did not answer.
"Has he?"
"Yes."
"And what did you tell him?"
She looked toward the window.
"That I was confused."
I felt my hands tighten.
"Confused about whether you're married?"
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Turn everything into some courtroom question."
"I'm asking basic questions."
"You always make things sound simpler than they are."
I stood.
"Then make it complicated for me."
She finally looked angry.
"Fine."
"You want complicated?"
"Yes."
"I'm lonely."
The word landed differently.
Not because I had never suspected it.
Because I had.
Clara continued.
"I have been lonely in this marriage for a long time."
I said nothing.
"You come home and open your laptop."
"You ask if Lola finished her homework."
"You ask whether the insurance payment cleared."
"You ask what we need from the grocery store."
"You fix things."
"You schedule things."
"You solve things."
"But you haven't looked at me in years."
That hurt because there was truth in it.
Not all of it.
Enough.
"I look at you."
"No, Elliot."
"You see whether everything is functioning."
"That's not the same thing."
The accusation found a place in me because it echoed something I had feared privately.
I was dependable.
Responsible.
Predictable.
I paid bills early.
Remembered school deadlines.
Changed the furnace filter.
Kept emergency savings.
Took Clara's car for oil changes before she remembered it needed them.
Somewhere along the way, I had begun confusing maintenance with intimacy.
But truth in one accusation does not make every action that follows it right.
"So instead of telling me we're in trouble," I said, "you started building something with someone else."
"I tried to tell you."
"When?"
"All the time."
"When?"
She shook her head.
"Every time I told you work was miserable."
"That was about work."
"It wasn't only about work."
"How was I supposed to know that?"
"You were supposed to know me."
That sentence angered me more than the rest.
"No."
Clara flinched.
"No, you don't get to do that."
My voice remained controlled, but the calm had hardened.
"You don't get to decide that because I failed to decode the correct hidden meaning of conversations, you were entitled to start an emotional relationship with another man."
"I didn't say entitled."
"You're going on a date with him tonight."
Her eyes filled.
"I don't know what else to do."
"Talk to your husband."
"I tried."
"No."
"You wanted me to notice without you having to risk saying it."
"Those aren't the same thing."
Clara rubbed her forehead.
"This is exactly what I mean."
"What?"
"You always need to be right."
I stared at her.
"This isn't about being right."
"My wife is leaving this apartment to go on a date with another man."
"There are certain situations where accuracy isn't arrogance."
She looked away.
I asked the question I had been avoiding.