HE SAID THE SEA MADE HIM SICK. THEN I SAW HIM ON A DOLPHIN TOUR WITH ANOTHER WOMAN.
Chapter 2
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My body moved before the rest of me did.
A crew member stepped around me carrying a crate of bottled water. I nearly collided with him.
“Sorry,” he said.
I didn’t answer.
Ten feet.
Then eight.
Then five.
The woman tilted her head.
Caleb was rubbing sunscreen down her arm now.
I stopped behind them.
The words came out surprisingly steady.
“So you’re not seasick anymore?”
Caleb’s entire body went still.
His hand stopped halfway down her arm.
The woman turned first.
Then Caleb looked at me.
I had seen my husband scared before.
When we got a call that his father had fallen from a ladder.
When our bank account had once dropped lower than we expected after a home repair.
When he nearly hit a deer driving at night.
This was different.
His face didn’t just lose color.
It emptied.
For a second, he looked like a man watching his entire life split open in front of him.
“Emily.”
My name sounded wrong in his mouth.
The woman looked from him to me.
“Who is this?”
Caleb opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
I almost laughed.
For four years he had always known what to say about boats.
Motion sickness.
Nausea.
Headaches.
Bad balance.
Anxiety.
Apparently adultery had finally made him speechless.
The woman’s expression changed.
Not guilt.
Confusion.
She looked at Caleb.
“Do you know her?”
I kept my eyes on him when I answered.
“He sleeps next to me.”
The wind seemed to vanish.
The woman stared at me.
Then at Caleb.
“What?”
“He sleeps next to me,” I repeated. “Every night. In our house.”
Caleb stepped toward me.
“Emily, please—”
The woman backed away from him.
Her hand flew to the brim of the cap.
“You said your wife moved out.”
That sentence hurt in a new place.
I turned toward her.
“What did he say?”
Caleb said her name sharply.
“Rachel.”
So that was her name.
Rachel ignored him.
Her face had gone pale too.
“He said you two were separated.”
“We’re not.”
“He said you moved out months ago.”
“I made him coffee this morning.”
Rachel stared at him.
I had never watched another human being realize they had been lied to at exactly the same moment I did.
There should have been something satisfying about it.
There wasn’t.
She looked sick.
Maybe even sicker than I felt.
Caleb lifted both hands.
“Can we not do this here?”
I looked around.
Families.
Couples.
Strangers with cameras.
A crew member pretending not to listen.
Water in every direction.
And suddenly I almost admired the absurdity.
For four years, the ocean had supposedly been Caleb’s greatest weakness.
Now it had trapped him with both women he’d lied to.
“Why?” I asked. “Are you getting nauseous?”
Rachel made a sound that was half laugh, half gasp.
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
“Emily.”
“No. I’m genuinely curious.”
My hands had started shaking.
I tucked them under my arms.
“You said you couldn’t stand on a boat without getting sick.”
“This isn’t about that.”
“It seems a little about that.”
“Please lower your voice.”
That did it.
Not the affair.
Not yet.
Not even Rachel.
That sentence.
Lower your voice.
As if my volume was the embarrassing thing happening.
As if I had wandered onto a boat and caused a scene for no reason.
I looked at Rachel again.
At the cap.
His cap.
“How long?”
She hesitated.
Caleb said, “Rachel, don’t.”
She looked at him with something sharp entering her expression.
Then she looked back at me.
“We’ve done this tour three times.”
For a second, I thought I had misheard her.
“This exact tour?”
She nodded.
“The first time was a few months ago.”
A few months.
Three times.
Three trips onto the water with her.
I laughed.
It came out thin and ugly.
Rachel flinched.
I wasn’t laughing at her.
I was laughing at myself.
“At least somebody got their money’s worth,” I said.
“Emily—”
I turned on Caleb.
“You refused to go with me for four years.”
His eyes flicked toward the people watching us.
That was still what bothered him most.
The audience.
Not me.
Not her.
The audience.
“I can explain.”
There it was.
The oldest sentence in the history of betrayal.
I looked at the man I had slept beside the night before and realized I had no idea who I was looking at.
Then the boat guide shouted over the speaker.
“There they are! Dolphins at two o’clock!”
Everyone rushed toward the opposite railing.
Rachel and I stayed where we were.
So did Caleb.
Somewhere behind me, people cheered as dolphins broke through the water.
The thing I had wanted to see for years was finally happening.
I didn’t turn around.
Because Rachel was reaching up slowly.
May you like
Taking off Caleb’s hat.
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