It was Zoe’s behavior George noticed first. She had become careful with her phone— not secretive exactly, but deliberate. She took calls in the other room. She checked her messages with the screen angled away. Twice he came downstairs at night and found her sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, and she’d said she couldn’t sleep. He’d offered to stay with her, but she said she would like to sit alone for a while.
She seemed fine in every other way. Maybe a little tired, but she’d attributed that to a difficult stretch at work, and he had no reason to question it. She was warm with him. She laughed easily.
She suggested they book a weekend away in October, and they’d looked at places together one Sunday morning with coffee, Rex stretched out on the floor between them, and it had felt entirely normal. It was only later, piecing things backward, that George would understand what she had been managing behind his back…