My wife is retired and home during the day. Until recently, if I called or texted, she usually answered fairly quickly. Now there are times when hours pass before I hear back. That’s a change for her, and it was the first thing I noticed.
A slow reply on its own wouldn’t have brought me here. But I’ve also started noticing that some of her things are in different places: lingerie, thigh-high stockings, anklets, toe rings. It has happened several times, enough that I’m paying attention to it now.
The detail I keep coming back to is a pair of blue thigh-high stockings I bought her. They were out of the package when I saw them again. They smelled like perfume and appeared to have been worn. One of her anklets was inside one of the stockings.
I know those details don’t tell me who she was with, or whether she was with anyone at all. They tell me the stockings had been taken out, and they looked used to me. What I’m afraid of goes beyond what I can actually establish.
Still, I’m having trouble brushing it off. The delayed responses are new. The things being moved seem to fit a recurring pattern, several times a week. Together, they’ve left me wondering whether something is happening while I’m trying to reach her.
I don’t have an admission or a clear account of anything. I have changes I’ve noticed in someone whose habits used to feel familiar. Writing them down makes them sound both small and impossible for me to stop thinking about.
I really think she may be cheating. But I’m still stuck with the same gap: I can describe the unanswered calls, the hours between messages, and the blue stockings with an anklet inside. I can’t say for certain what any of it means.
