The nurse opened the door, looked at me, then glanced across the waiting room at Jack. She knew him immediately. She said his name before she even looked at my chart, and something in her expression made my stomach drop. Jack stood up so quickly that his phone slipped from his hand and hit the floor. He stared at me for a few seconds without saying anything. Then the nurse quietly asked, “You’re his wife?” I nodded. She looked back at Jack and said, “I think you two need to talk.”
Jack followed me into the hallway and immediately started explaining that it wasn’t what I thought. He said he’d been helping someone and that he’d planned to tell me eventually. I asked him why he had texted me from that exact room saying he was still at work. He couldn’t answer. Then the nurse returned with a clipboard and asked Jack to finish signing a form before the doctor could see him. I glanced down without meaning to. His name was beside a patient’s name I’d never heard before, and underneath it was a note showing that this wasn’t his first visit.
I asked him how long he’d been coming there. He said a few months, then changed it to “not that long.” I told him to stop changing his answer. He finally admitted he’d been there several times, but he swore there was no affair. Then he said something that made me even more confused: “She’s not the reason I’m here. You’re the reason.” I couldn’t understand what that meant. I walked outside and sat in my car, staring at the text he’d sent me minutes earlier. A few minutes later, Jack called. I didn’t answer. Then another message came through: “Please don’t leave. You need to know what happened before we met.”
