The blue shirt.
Everything suddenly looked different.
“He wasn’t going to a meeting,” I said.
“No.”
“He was meeting you.”
“Yes.”
“And he was going to tell me he wanted a divorce.”
Chloe nodded.
Then she whispered, “But that isn’t why I came.”
I looked at the envelope.
“What is that?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she asked, “Have you ever seen your husband’s medical records?”
I felt a chill crawl up my arms.
“No.”
“Then you should.”
She pushed the envelope toward me.
My fingers trembled as I opened it.
The first page was a hospital report.
The name at the top was Brad’s.
The date was six months earlier.
I read the first few lines.
Then stopped.
I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.
“What is this?”
Chloe sat down.
“Brad has been seeing a specialist.”
“For what?”
She looked at me.
“Memory loss.”
I stared at her.
“No.”
“He’s been forgetting things.”
“Everyone forgets things.”
“Not like this.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out another document.
“He forgot your anniversary last year.”
I said nothing.
“He forgot where he parked his car three times in one month.”
My mouth went dry.
“He forgot a meeting with a client and blamed traffic.”
She slid another page across the table.
“He forgot he had already fired an employee.”
I remembered that.
Brad had come home furious that night, insisting the man had betrayed him.
But the next morning, Brad had called the same employee and asked why he hadn’t shown up for work.
I had thought he was lying.
Chloe’s voice softened.
“He isn’t having an affair with me.”
I looked up sharply.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
She looked exhausted.
“I expect you to hate me. I probably deserve some of it.”
“You slept with my husband.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t tell me this isn’t an affair.”
“It started that way.”
She looked down at her hands.
“But then I realized something was wrong.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t meeting me because he loved me.”
My heart pounded.
“He was meeting me because he couldn’t remember who I was.”
Silence.
I stared at her.
“What are you talking about?”
“He would text me asking where we were meeting.”
“You were his secretary.”
“I know.”
“Of course he’d know.”
“He didn’t.”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“One night, he called me by your name.”
I stopped breathing.
“He apologized. Then five minutes later, he called me Chloe again.”
My fingers tightened around the report.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was angry at you.”
“At me?”
“I thought you were the reason he was becoming distant.”
She laughed bitterly.
“I thought he was leaving you for me.”
“Then what changed?”
She pointed at the final document.
“This.”
I lifted it.
It was a handwritten note.
Brad’s handwriting.
I recognized it immediately.
My husband had written:
If Emily asks what happened, don’t tell her about the first envelope.
I looked at Chloe.
“What first envelope?”
She went pale.
“I don’t know.”
“You just said you did what he asked.”
“I did.”
“What did you do?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“I mailed something.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Chloe.”
She looked toward the open front door.
Then toward the stairs.
“I wasn’t supposed to come here.”
“Why?”
“Because Brad told me never to come to this house.”
“Why?”
“He said if I ever came here, you would be in danger.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I thought of the phone on the floor.
The message.
The pharmacy bag.
My name written across it.
I suddenly remembered.
The bag.
I grabbed it from the counter.
Inside was a prescription bottle.
My name was printed on the label.
But I had never been prescribed anything.
I handed it to Chloe.
She read the label.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She didn’t answer.
“What is it?”
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