Of course there was.
Carl said quietly,
“Can we talk about this somewhere private?”
“No. Apparently everyone here knows more about my life than I do. So let’s finish.”
His shoulders dropped.
“I accepted another job.”
“Where?”
He named a city almost six hours away.
I stared at him.
“You accepted a job six hours away?”
“Yes.”
“And when exactly were you planning to tell me?”
“I hadn’t figured out how.”
Then Sheila spoke.
“I thought she knew.”
I looked at her.
She no longer looked smug.
She looked horrified.
Whatever version of our marriage Carl had sold her, apparently my standing there in tears was not part of it.
“He told me you knew,” she said.
“Knew about what?”
Carl snapped,
“Sheila.”
She turned on him.
“No. You don’t get to do that.”
Then she faced me.
“He told me you two had been separated for months. He said you were still living together because of the house and because your youngest was in college.”
I looked at Carl.
“We slept in the same bed Thursday.”
His face flushed.
Sheila stared at him.
“You told me you slept in the guest room.”
He said nothing.
And suddenly I understood her earlier reaction.
She had believed she was laughing at a bitter joke from a man whose marriage had already ended.
That didn’t make her laughter kind.
But it did mean Carl had lied to her too.
Then one of his coworkers, Megan, approached me.
“Laura, there’s something else.”
Carl immediately said,
“Megan, don’t.”
She ignored him.
“He told us you were seeing someone too.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“He said the marriage ended mutually.”
Another coworker nodded.
“He told us you had someone.”
My humiliation hardened into anger.
Carl had built himself an entirely separate reality.
In one version, I was his boring wife.
In another, I was already dating someone else.
To Sheila, we had been separated for months.
And in my version?
We were married.
Apparently, that was the only story Carl had forgotten to update.
David looked toward Sheila.
“You filed a relocation request last week.”
“Yes.”
“To the same region Carl is moving to.”
“Because Carl told me there was an opening.”
David shook his head.
“There isn’t. I checked when I became suspicious.”
The room became painfully quiet.
Sheila turned toward Carl.
“What?”
“I was working on it.”
“You told me it had already been approved.”
“I said it probably would be.”
“No. You told me everything was arranged.”
The confident version of Carl from ten minutes earlier was gone.
He looked deflated.
“I thought I could make it work.”
Sheila stared at him.
“You told me we already had an apartment lined up.”
“We do.”
“You told me the deposit was already covered.”
My stomach turned.
That couldn’t be true.
I handled our finances.
Most of our money was joint.
There was no hidden account large enough to fund the new life he had apparently promised her.
“Did you lie about that too?” Sheila asked.
Carl said nothing.
She gave a bitter laugh.
“Oh my God.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
Eventually, he answered.
“I felt trapped.”
“By me?”
“By everything.”
He rubbed his face.
“I turned fifty and started thinking, is this really it? Same office. Same house. Same conversations.”
