The Bare Wire

The cable guy was in our bedroom when I found the hair.

Not mine—shoulder-length, dyed too dark, caught in the seal of the window frame. And not his—he kept his military-short, same buzz cut since the years he'd spent in intelligence work, or so he'd said.

"Just a routine installation," the cable technician called from the closet, his voice muffled. "Everything's hooked up now."

Routine. That was the word Marcus used too, when he came home late from his "consulting" work, smelling of hotel soap and someone else's perfume. I'd bear it, I told myself. We all make compromises for love, don't we?

But the hair.

I moved to the window, my fingers tracing the strand where it caught in the weather-stripping. Who had been standing here? Who had pressed their face against the glass while I slept down the hall?

"Ma'am?" The cable guy emerged, wiping his hands on a rag. "You okay?"

I looked at him—really looked—at the wedding line tan-free on his finger, at the way his eyes didn't quite meet mine. Spy craft didn't die. It just went private.

"You installed a camera," I said, my voice steady despite the hollow opening in my chest. "That's not standard for cable."

He paused. Then: "Your husband paid extra. Residential surveillance package. Very popular these days."

Of course. The trips, the late nights, the careful rationing of affection. Marcus hadn't been cheating. He'd been monitoring me. Because even after all these years, even after the shared mortgages and the shared grief of three miscarriages, he couldn't bear to trust.

The technician left with a sympathetic look. I sat on the bed we'd bought together, in the house we'd filled with a life that apparently required surveillance, and realized I'd been living with a stranger all along. Some spies never retire—they just bring their work home with them, train their lenses on the people they're supposed to love, and wait—always wait—for betrayal.

I called Marcus. He didn't answer. Some secrets, I discovered, keep themselves.