PART 13 – The Footsteps Below Me Belonged to the Man Whose Shirts I Had Been Folding for Nearly Three Decades

I knew the sound of his footsteps.

That was the first thing I understood.

I had heard them on our stairs, across our kitchen floor, and along the hallway outside our bedroom for years.

I could tell when he was tired by the way he dragged one foot slightly behind the other.

I could tell when he was carrying something heavy because he walked more slowly.

The footsteps coming up from downstairs belonged to my husband.

I stood beside the kitchen counter.

The cleaning cloth was still beneath my hand.

For a moment, I couldn't make myself move.

I had spent days wondering whether I would ever see him at that house.

Now he was there, and I was the one who hadn't been expected.

I heard a door close.

Then came the familiar sound of keys being placed on a hard surface.

I knew that sound, too.

At home, he always dropped his keys onto the small table beside the entrance.

He never put them in the drawer, no matter how many times I asked him to.

I looked toward the hallway.

I could leave through the back door.

The thought came quickly.

I could gather my supplies, slip outside, and let him believe the house was empty.

But the woman had hired me to clean.

I had done nothing wrong.

I had been careful with her belongings, careful with the paperwork, and careful not to disturb anything that wasn't mine.

I wasn't going to behave like somebody caught doing something shameful.

Still, I wasn't ready to face him.

I heard him move through the lower room.

A cupboard opened.

Something was set down.

Then he called out a woman's name.

I had never heard him use that name in our house.

I knew it belonged to the woman who paid me every Tuesday.

I had seen it on the lease.

Hearing him say it made the document feel real in a way it hadn't before.

He wasn't simply a man whose shirts had ended up in another house.

He knew the person who lived there.

He was comfortable enough to call for her as he came inside.

I gripped the edge of the counter.

I wanted to believe there was still an explanation.

But I had begun to understand that explanations could be true and still leave out the part that mattered.

He called her name again.

No answer came from upstairs.

I was standing only a short distance away.

I could have answered him.

I could have stepped into the hallway and asked why he was there.

Instead, I remained where I was.

The clock on the wall moved past the quarter hour.

I thought about the lease in the kitchen drawer.

I thought about the moving receipt dated January fourth.

I thought about the refinancing papers he had brought home in March.

And I thought about the lawyer's instruction not to tell him what I had found.

I had no idea what she would advise if she knew he was standing downstairs while I was cleaning his girlfriend's house.

I only knew that I needed to keep my head.

I put the cloth down.

Then I heard him moving toward the stairs.

I stepped away from the counter.

There was no place to hide without making the situation worse.

So I waited.

Click here to continue reading: PART 14: I Had Cleaned His Shirts for Years, but I Had Never Imagined Standing in Another Woman’s House While He Called Her Name