The crying came hard and ugly, the kind that steals your air and makes you press your fist to your mouth so nobody hears.
He had gotten another woman pregnant.
Unless there was some miraculous explanation that I had not yet come up with.
I stared at myself in the tiny mirror and barely recognized the woman looking back.
My lipstick was still perfect. My hair still curled. My red dress is still bright and beautiful.
I looked like someone dressed for a celebration who had wandered by mistake into a funeral.
I splashed water on my eyes and tried to think.
Maybe she wasn’t his.
Maybe there was some explanation that would not destroy every year of my marriage retroactively.
But underneath all those desperate little lies was something colder:
He had used the announcement system on a commercial flight to declare love for another woman.
On our wedding anniversary. The same one he couldn’t spend with me because he was scheduled for this flight.
