Greens

Emma stood at the kitchen counter, her hands wrist-deep in cold water, squeezing the life out of fresh spinach. The water turned dark as she worked, watching the green blood spiral down the drain. Dinner would be ready by eight. Mark always came home from padel at eight-fifteen, sweat-slicked and glowing with that particular radiance of a man who'd spent two hours pretending he was twenty-five again.

His iphone lay on the counter where he'd left it that morning, face down like a sleeping animal. Emma had never been the type to check her husband's phone. She prided herself on this, wore it like a moral vitamin supplement—a daily dose of trust that kept her healthy and superior to women who snooped.

But the phone had buzzed twice in the past three minutes. Not texts. Something else. Notifications that lit up the screen with just enough time to catch a name before it darkened again.

Sara.

The spinach in the colander looked suddenly obscene—raw and naked and too intimate.

She dried her hands on the dishtowel, heart hammering a rhythm that felt almost violent in her chest. She didn't want to look. Looking was a choice, and not looking was also a choice, but there was no version of this where she could un-know what she might already suspect. The phone lay there, innocuous as a black mirror, asking her who she wanted to be.

Behind her, the front lock clicked. The sound of Mark's key in the door, familiar as her own heartbeat. Emma's hand hovered over the phone, inches from revelation or catastrophe or both.

She pulled her hand back.

The spinach went into the pan, sizzling as it hit the hot oil. By the time Mark walked into the kitchen, gym bag slung over his shoulder, grinning with that boyish enthusiasm she'd once found so disarming, Emma was stirring the greens with steady hands.

'Smells good,' he said, dropping a kiss on her temple. 'Rough game today. Tom killed it.'

'Tom?' Emma repeated.

'Yeah. Tom and Sara joined the club. She's actually pretty good.' Mark laughed, opening the fridge for a water. 'Better than me, I think.'

Emma watched him, her husband, and understood suddenly that every marriage was built on small, necessary blindnesses. She'd taken her vitamin today. She'd take it tomorrow too.

'She sounds lovely,' Emma said, and served them both dinner.