Chapter 3: I'm So Sorry
The three words were: *I'm so sorry.*
That was all.
No explanation.
No call back.
Just those three words sitting on my screen like a confession with nowhere to go.
I looked up at Michael.
His eyes were already on me.
Watching my face.
Watching me read it.
"What did she send you?" he asked.
I turned the phone around so he could see the screen.
He closed his eyes.
That was all I needed.
"How long have you been talking to my sister behind my back?"
"It's not what you think."
"Then tell me what it is, Michael.
Right now.
In this room."
He moved toward me.
I stepped back.
"Don't."
Diane had gone quiet.
She was still standing near the table, but something had shifted in her face.
The satisfaction was gone.
She looked like a woman who had lit a fire and was only now realizing she was standing too close to it.
"Michael," she said.
"Just tell her."
"Stay out of it, Mom."
"I've been staying out of it for over a year.
You told me it was handled.
You told me she didn't know and she never would." Diane's voice cracked at the edge.
"You lied to me too."
I looked at her.
"What do you mean she didn't know?"
Diane pressed her lips together.
"What do you mean I didn't know?" My voice came out very quiet.
The kind of quiet that fills a room faster than shouting.
"Know what, Diane?"
She looked at Michael.
He said nothing.
So she said it herself.
"Your sister has been seeing Michael since before you two were married."
The kitchen clock ticked.
Once.
Twice.
"That's not—" Michael started.
"Before we were married," I repeated.
"It ended," he said quickly.
"It ended before I proposed to you.
I swear to you it ended."
"But it started while you knew me."
He didn't answer.
"While you knew both of us."
"It was a mistake.
It was one summer and it was a mistake and I ended it because I chose you.
I chose you and I married you and I have never gone back to that."
"Then why is she calling your phone?"
Silence.
"Why does your mother know about it and I don't?"
More silence.
I sat down.
Not because I wanted to.
My legs just stopped holding me.
Emma was in the car.
Eight years old, sitting in the dark parking area outside, waiting for her mother to come out of a house where everything had just collapsed.
"The Thursday nights," I said.
"Where do you actually go?"
Michael sat down across from me.
He put both hands flat on the table.
"I go to therapy," he said.
"I have been going to therapy for fourteen months because of the guilt.
Because I couldn't tell you and I couldn't live with not telling you and I didn't know what to do."
I stared at him.
"You've been going to therapy about the affair you had with my sister."
"Yes."
"And you told your mother."
"She found a receipt.
Last year.
I didn't tell her by choice."
I looked at Diane.
She had sat down too now, at the far end of the table, her hands in her lap.
"And my sister," I said.
"Has she been in contact with you this whole time?"
"No.
Tonight is the first time she's called in over two years."
My phone buzzed again.
Another text from my sister.
This one longer.
I didn't read it yet.
I set the phone face-down on the table and looked at my husband.
"Get out of this house," I said.
"Both of you give me five minutes alone."
May you like
Neither of them moved.
"Now."
