the things her partner did some evenings, some afternoons. Sloane lived in fear of being found out, of being called a terrible person. And eventually she was.
It was winter but not freezing. Sloane was walking a neighbor’s dog down her street. Richard was overseas. She missed him but felt cool and gelled. Taking care of the house, reading, seeing her friends. Later, she’d decided, she would go to the market for something fun to bring home for her children. Something they could bake, plus icing and sprinkles. It’s often during those moments of careless joy, she would later realize, that an anvil hits you on the head.
Right near the bend where she could see the ocean, her phone dinged. A message read, I have Wes’s phone. I saw your texts. I saw the photos.
The message was in reply to a text from Sloane to Wes when they were arranging to see each other. Sloane had written something flirtatious. Can’t wait for later . . .
The street, suddenly, felt full of eyes. The winter berries on their prim twigs. Sloane felt naked and disgusted with herself. She did not feel like a mother, or a wife, or a business owner, or even a healthy body in the world. She was a dark clot.
Worrying she might faint, she gripped the leash of the dog tighter. She tried to concentrate on the dog. This animal that was unaware of the type of person who stood in front of him. The shame was enormous but beyond it there was nothing. Sloane felt nothing inside. She was garments, a poncho, and a good pair of jeans. Had she died again?
Though grieving the person she’d wanted to be, she understood it was best to write back quickly. She looked around to see if Jenny was on the road, in a parked car, watching her.
It’s not what you think, Sloane wrote. She saw the words on the screen and hated herself.
Sloane knew, as she imagined Jenny knew, that it is almost always what you think.
As she stood there in the road, her self-loathing grew taller and stronger than any weed, any tree. Prior to today Sloane had thought, Maybe it’s cool, maybe she knows. Maybe she only kind of knows but someday we can include her.
But Sloane could no longer pretend innocence. In fact, right then Sloane realized that she had known all along that Jenny was in the dark. She had just been trying to convince herself otherwise.
Another text came through. Jenny said she never wanted to talk to Sloane again, did not want to see her or hear a word about her. But she needed to know if she was safe, medically speaking.
Sloane’s stomach hit the floor.
She knew she didn’t matter but she wanted to try to salvage Jenny and Wes. She wanted to protect Wes. Help him, she thought.
Sloane didn’t reply. Jenny pushed. She needed to know, she said, if she had any diseases. She needed to know now.
Sloane denied it once again. She said they had flirted inappropriately, that was all. That was all, she wrote. She looked at the words on her screen. The dog did not pull on its leash. He sat and waited.
There were two truths. The first was that she didn’t think she’d had to consider Jenny, that Wes would be making the right decisions for his partner. The second truth, perhaps truer than the first, was that two men don’t think about things as much as a woman does. Perhaps Sloane was being sexist, in a way, but she knew men could be selfish. As long as certain needs of theirs were being met, they didn’t consider the cost. It had been on Sloane, as a woman, to make sure the other woman was in the fold.
There was also a third truth: Wes’s presence in her life had wholed Sloane. He’d made what she did with her husband okay. In some ways, she didn’t know how she would exist without him.
Contact was cut off almost immediately. Sloane wanted Richard to talk to Jenny. Richard said he would think about it. Then some time passed and he said it was better to leave it alone, to let the bones cool. Let’s not get involved in another couple’s affairs, he said.
But, Sloane said, we already did.
For several months Sloane didn’t know if Wes and his partner would stay together. She was worried about the family, the children. The rumors were simple and direct, that Sloane had had an affair with