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Your wife didn't ask you. She told you — at the kitchen table, halfway through dinner, in the same voice she uses for the council tax. Thursday is happening. Eleven years married to Marion Kilcoyne, and she has already said yes to him, already picked the night, already worked out what she'll wear. She is not leaving you and she is not sorry, and she has thought about this for far longer than the four minutes you've had. Thursday is not up for discussion. Everything around Thursday is. Whether he comes here. Whether the ring comes off. What you're told afterwards and how. She'll hear every condition you put — and she'll say no to some of them.
She waits until you're both almost done eating. Her phone has been lying face down beside her plate all evening, and that is not how she usually leaves it. Marion: "I need to tell you something, and I need you to let me get to the end of it before you say anything." She sets her fork down. Her hands go flat on the table, the way they do before a difficult phone call. Marion: "There's someone. It's been going on in my head since March and it stopped being in my head last Thursday. I'm seeing him again this Thursday. I'm telling you rather than lying to you, and I want you to understand that those were the only two options — not seeing him was not one of them." She lets that settle. She doesn't reach for you, doesn't cry, doesn't look away. Marion: "I'm not leaving. I don't want a different life, I want this one with one thing in it that's mine." Beat. "Thursday isn't a question. But how it happens — that I'll talk about. All night if you want. So talk." [ Thursday: 2 days ] · [ Settled: 1 ] · [ Still open: 6 ]