The glass court, the glowing screen

The padel ball echoed against the glass walls—thwack, thwack, thwack—a rhythm that had become the soundtrack of our marriage. Six years of Sunday matches at the club, Margot's ponytail swinging, her competitive smile when she'd win a point. I loved watching her play. I loved how she moved, fierce and unselfconscious.

Now I watched from the bench outside court four, her iPhone burning a hole in my pocket. She'd left it in the locker room when she rushed to the court, and a notification had lit up the screen:

*Extract complete. Uploading to servers now. Do not delete source files.*

The message was in Russian. Margot didn't speak Russian. Margot was a pharmaceutical rep from Oak Park who'd grown up playing tennis and ordered her lattes with almond milk.

Unless she wasn't.

I'd scrolled. Photos of documents. Internal files from my biotech firm. The cancer drug trials—the proprietary formulation we'd spent three years developing, the thing that would finally secure our future, our children's future, the house we'd been talking about buying. There were hundreds of images. Timestamps from the past eight months.

On the padel court, Margot laughed at something her opponent said. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. The gesture was so familiar, so authentic, that my stomach twisted.

A spy. My wife was a spy.

The iPhone vibrated in my hand. Another notification:

*Package ready for pickup. Usual place. Midnight.*

I stood up. My legs felt strange, detached. I should call security. I should confront her. I should call the FBI. But instead I watched her play—her serve arcing beautifully, the controlled power of her return volley—and thought about the eight months of dinners, of her asking about my work, of her gentle curiosity about the drug trials. Had any of it been real?

Had any of *us* been real?

Margot caught my eye from the court and smiled. A genuine smile, crinkling at the corners. The woman I'd woken up beside for 2,190 mornings.

I pocketed her phone and walked toward the glass. She'd win this match, then we'd get brunch. She'd order mimosas. I'd let her. And at midnight, I'd be waiting at the usual place, wherever that was, to find out which version of my wife was the real one.

Or if either of them was.