We were happy.
Then something changed.
Richard became quiet — he walked around as though a darkness followed him. I’d wake up to find him sleeping on the couch in his office with the door locked, claiming it was work stress.
He stopped asking how my day was. And some nights, I’d hear him coughing and sit on the other side of the door with my hand pressed to the wood.
“Richard?” I’d whisper.
But he never opened it.
Then something changed.
I thought maybe he was depressed. I begged him to talk to me.
Then one night, just after dinner, he sat at the kitchen table — the one where we’d celebrated every birthday, every burnt casserole, and Gina’s horrible baking — and said it.
“Julia, I cheated on you.”
“What?” I gasped, staring at the man I’d married.
“I cheated. I’ve been seeing someone else. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t cry. He didn’t even look at me.
“I cheated. I’ve been seeing someone else. I’m sorry.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“No,” I snapped. “You don’t get to shatter 38 years with one sentence and then sit there like you lost your darn keys.”
His hands shook, but he didn’t speak.
A week later, I asked for a divorce.
“What’s her name?”
Richard didn’t fight it. He didn’t beg, he didn’t call… it was clean, bloodless, and cruel.
Gina told me later that he kept in touch with them — the kids and the grandkids. I told them I was fine with it… and that I didn’t need to be part of that anymore.
That was a lie.
**
Five years passed. They were my quiet years — when I stopped asking questions and stopped hoping for answers.
I rebuilt, slowly — lunch dates with friends, holidays with the kids, and rearranged rooms to feel less like him.
