After My Husband Spent My Fortune on His Mistress

On the morning of our tenth anniversary, I woke up before the hogs did.

I scrubbed the kitchen floor of our farmhouse until the old boards looked almost new. I picked wildflowers from the ditch by the road. Lupine, fireweed, a little yellow balsamroot. I stuck them in a mason jar because we didn't own a vase. Then I cooked all day. Tomato soup from scratch. Roast chicken with rosemary. A lemon tart that took me three tries.

The wine was the last thing. I had saved that bottle for six years. It sat at the back of the pantry behind the canned beans, waiting for a night that mattered.

Tonight mattered. I was sure of it.

Lian had been quiet for weeks. He checked his phone in the barn. He stepped outside to take calls. I told myself he was planning something. A ring, maybe. Ten years was long enough, wasn't it?

I put on my one nice blouse. Cream silk, with a tiny tear under the arm I'd sewn shut myself. In the cracked bathroom mirror, I barely knew the woman looking back. Sunburned cheeks. Rough hands. Feed dust under my nails that never quite washed out.

Nobody in Montana knew who I really was. Not the neighbors. Not the guys at the feed store. Not even Lian. To them, I was just Hadley, the girl who shoveled pig pens and patched the roof every spring. Not Hadley Spencer. Not James Spencer's only daughter. I had left that girl in Manhattan ten years ago. On purpose.

Lian needed to believe he built everything himself. So I let him.

I lit the candles at six. He was supposed to be home at six-thirty.

He came in at eight-fifteen.

"Hey," he said. He dropped his keys on the counter. His eyes slid right past the table, the flowers, the candles. "Smells good."

"It's our anniversary," I said.

"I know." He pulled out a chair and sat. "Long day. Caleb messed up the feed order again."

I poured the wine. My hands shook a little. He didn't notice. He ate the soup fast, eyes on his plate. I waited for him to look up.

"Lian," I said. "Ten years."

"Mm." He chewed. "Crazy, right?"

"Is that all?"

He sighed. That sigh. I'd heard it a thousand times. "Hadley, don't start. Can we just have a nice dinner like adults? Be mature for once."

Then his phone buzzed.

He looked at the screen. His whole face changed. The tired lines went soft. His shoulders lifted. He stood so fast his chair scraped the floor.

"I have to go."

"Go where?"

"It's important." He was already grabbing his jacket.

"More important than tonight?"

He didn't answer. He pressed the phone to his ear, and his voice went low and gentle. A voice I hadn't heard in years. "Hey. Hey, I'm here. Don't cry. I'm coming."

The screen door banged shut. His truck roared down the gravel road.

The lemon tart sat on the counter. Untouched.

I stared at his empty chair for a long time.

I called him at nine. No answer. Nine-thirty. Ten. Eleven. Seven calls. Every time, it rang and rang, then went to voicemail. His recorded voice sounded so cheerful. I hung up before the beep.

Outside, the wind shoved at the windows. The roof creaked in the corner where it always leaked. The candles burned lower. Wax slid down the sides and pooled on the table, white and hard. The wildflowers drooped. The chicken grew cold and shiny with grease.

I didn't move. I just sat there in my nice blouse, waiting.

Around four, I stopped checking my phone.

He came home at dawn.

The sky was gray. A rooster crowed somewhere down the road. Lian walked in like nothing had happened. He smelled like vanilla and something floral. Sweet. Expensive. Not me. I smelled like hog feed and candle smoke.

"You're up early," he said.

"I never went to bed."

He frowned, like I'd said something strange. "An old friend needed help. It was an emergency."

"What friend?"

"You don't know her." He went to the coffee pot. "It's complicated. Don't make this a thing, okay?"

He poured himself a cup. Just one. He leaned against the counter and scrolled through his phone, smiling at something on the screen.

He didn't ask why my eyes were red. He didn't ask why the candles were gone. He didn't even look at the table.

I looked at it, though. The dead flowers. The cold food. The puddles of wax that had once been tall and white and full of hope.

And something inside me clicked.

It wasn't loud. It didn't hurt. It was like a lock turning. Quiet. Final.

I picked up my phone. My fingers were steady.

We're done, Lian. Ten years was enough. Don't call me.

I hit send. Across the kitchen, his phone buzzed. He glanced at it. Then he laughed. Like it was a joke.

"Seriously, Hadley? This is so immature."

I didn't answer. I opened a travel app.

Bozeman to New York. One way.

I tapped Book.

On the hook by the door hung my old college scarf, crimson and gray. He had wrapped it around my shoulders our first fall in Boston, the day I fell for him. I took it down and folded it into my bag.

Not because I still loved him.

Because I wasn't finished with it yet.