I called the marina office and canceled the reservation for the lake house before he even got out of the shower. Told them there was a family emergency and nobody would be coming that weekend.
Then I called the credit card company.
What I expected was one affair.
What I got was a woman on the fraud line asking which charge I meant because there were “multiple recent jewelry purchases” on the account.
Apparently the necklace wasn’t the only thing.
Earrings in Naples. Bracelet outside Nashville. Hotel deposits attached to all of them.
Same card. Different women.
I spent almost three hours going through statements while my husband sat downstairs pretending to watch golf like nothing was happening. At one point he actually yelled up asking if I’d seen his blue cooler.
Then I found recurring payments to a Pilates studio two towns over.
Not Karen’s membership.
His.
I drove there the next morning because honestly I needed to see if this woman was real or if my husband had completely lost his mind at sixty-one years old.
The front desk girl recognized him immediately.
Not secretly either. Big smile. “Oh your husband’s hilarious,” she said before I even introduced myself.
Apparently everybody there knew him as “Rick.”
Not his name.
Then Karen walked into the lobby holding the necklace box because one of the clasps broke. She stopped cold when she saw me.
I asked how long they’d been together.
She looked confused and said, “Together?”
Turns out she thought he was widowed.
Said he talked about his “late wife” constantly and kept showing people an urn necklace he wore under his shirt.
I had never seen that necklace before in my life.
Karen left almost immediately after that. Embarrassed more than anything.
Before she walked out, she quietly handed me a sympathy card she said she’d been meaning to mail after “the memorial.”
Inside was a printed photo from a restaurant party.
My husband standing beside a framed picture of me surrounded by candles.