After My Husband Chose His Mistress Over Me

The HR office smelled like burnt coffee and printer toner. Gray light came through the slats of a half-broken blind. The woman across from me—Megan from People Ops, name tag crooked—kept her eyes on the folder, not on me.

"Alison, your role has been eliminated effective today."

She said it the way you'd read a weather report. I nodded. I think I even smiled, the small polite smile I always use when I don't know what else to do with my face. Eight years at marketing desks in this city, and it ended in nine minutes. They gave me a paper bag for the things in my drawer. A planner. A mug. A pen Keith gave me for my birthday three years ago, back when he still gave me things.

Outside, November was throwing a fine, mean rain. Not the kind that drenches you. The kind that gets inside your collar one drop at a time.

I looked at the subway entrance. I looked at my MetroCard. Then I started walking.

Twenty blocks. I told myself it was about the money. It wasn't really. I just couldn't stand the idea of being underground with other people's faces. The rain stuck my hair to my neck. My shoes started making a soft squelching sound. By Twenty-Third Street I was rehearsing.

*Keith, something happened today.*

*Keith, I have news. It's okay, we're okay.*

*Keith, they let me go.*

None of them sounded right.

When I pushed open our apartment door, he was on the couch, laptop on his knees, in the navy sweater I'd bought him last Christmas. He looked up. The first thing his eyes did—I won't forget it—was flinch. A small twitch at the corner. Then he caught it and smoothed it back.

"You're soaked."

"I got laid off."

He didn't move toward me. He set the laptop aside, slowly, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Today?"

"This morning."

A long breath through his nose. "That's—" He paused, choosing. "The timing is bad."

"For me."

"For—you know what I mean. The guys at the office. I just got in there. I was going to bring you to the holiday thing." He gave a thin, embarrassed laugh, like I had spilled something on his shirt. "It's a bad look, that's all I'm saying. Don't make a face. I'm not—I'm just being honest."

I stood there, dripping onto the rug we picked out together at a flea market on Twentieth Street. I waited for him to ask if I was okay. He asked if I'd taken off my coat.

I took off my coat.

---

Thanksgiving came two weeks later, and Dad set the table for four.

Four. Him, me, Keith, and the empty chair where my mother used to sit, which he never moved and never explained. He'd made the brown-sugar glazed ham Keith liked. He'd ironed a napkin. The little porcelain turkey from my childhood was on the sideboard, slightly chipped on the tail.

Dad's apartment in Murray Hill