I stood up and turned towards our bedroom. My husband was now in the kitchen, ready to cook.

“Do you want to eat?”

“No.”

“Can you talk to me?”

“No.”

Our room shut the chaos out. I lay on the bed thinking about that poor, deluded man convinced of his wife’s (is there a wife?) involvement with my husband. What must she be going through?

I must have known, deep inside, by the automatic way I was responding, like a machine. My head would have none of it. Eventually, I sort of raised up, wandered out and my husband asked,

“May I talk to you?”

To my surprise, whatever already knew inside of me answered,

“Yes, but I want you to sit where I can see your eyes.”

I have never spoken to him like that, ever, before. Something had definitely changed.

He began telling me that he “friended” so and so on Facebook and that an email correspondence began. “The emails turned romantic…” I interrupted him,

“Did you have an affair?”

“Yes. But it was very brief.”

I was stunned. I had asked it, but I hadn’t really believed that it was possible. What I remember most is that I put my face in my hands to hold up my head. I asked him questions. He answered them.

She was his first love, with whom there had been a long, intimate relationship. If I had known who the person was that the husband was ranting about, I would have known something was up. How? Although a strong personality, my husband has a sensitive, romantic, nostalgic side and the Other Woman had cruelly dumped him, leaving him heartsick.

There was unfinished business.