The question broke Nicole’s focus instantly. She reached for him, pulled the sunglasses gently off his face, and crouched until they were eye level. “No. Not even a little bit.”
She removed the clutch from under his arm and gave him a quick kiss on the forehead. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Why don’t you go put on your dinosaur pajamas and watch cartoons for a few minutes?” “It’s morning,” Isaiah said, objecting to the pajamas on technical grounds. “Then your dinosaur shirt.”
“Can I keep the blazer?” “No, baby.”
He considered negotiating but sensed, as children do, that the adults had entered a zone where bargaining about clothes would not help. He shuffled toward the hallway, sleeves dragging at his sides. Halfway there, he turned. “Daddy, you spilled your coffee.” Adrian looked down at the brown puddle spreading across the unopened electric bill.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I did.” When Isaiah disappeared down the hall, Nicole stood and placed the purse on the island between herself and her husband. “Open it.”
Adrian rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “It’s not mine to open.” “Neither is my marriage, apparently, and yet we’re about to.” He flinched. “Nicole, please.”
“Open the purse.” He did. Inside were ordinary things first: lipstick, a compact mirror, mints, a phone charger, a small bottle of hand cream, two tampons, and a card case. Nicole watched every item come out as if inventory itself could become a language. Then Adrian pulled out a hotel key sleeve from the Meridian Downtown, a boutique hotel less than a mile from his office.
The room number was written in pen. Nicole’s eyes moved to his face. He did not speak.
There was also a folded receipt from the hotel bar dated three weeks earlier, 9:42 p.m., two cocktails and a dessert. Adrian had told Nicole that night he was in a late budget meeting with the construction finance team. She remembered because Isaiah had thrown up after dinner and she had called Adrian twice before texting him that she had it handled and he should finish work. Adrian looked at the receipt and seemed to understand that lying had become both useless and insulting. “Nicole,” he said, “I made a mistake.”