I used to assume that my marriage was solid because it was built on love and trust. Tom and I lived in the old family house my grandmother left me, which many people would call a magnificent place to live. The ivy-covered porch, the creaking oak floors, and the lavender-filled garden all made it feel like a place where memories may linger a long time. Tom would often talk about the future we might have together, like having kids, going on family vacations, and maybe even having another generation run down those same halls. We had been married for three years. Sometimes, when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, I would see him looking at baby names on his laptop. My heart was always full of hope.
That’s why the news I got last weekend really hit me hard.
I went to Chicago for a long weekend to visit my sister Emma. Tom believed I would be back on Sunday night, but by Saturday afternoon, I was really missing home. I missed Tom the most, but I also missed my bed, the sound of our house settling at night, and the sound of our house settling. I told Emma during lunch that I was going home early. She told me to go and made fun of me by saying we were “disgustingly sweet.”
The four-hour drive felt longer than usual, but when I finally got home at 9 p.m., something was off immediately away. The house was quiet. It was very dark in the house, and there was no noise. Tom would normally be in the living room watching sports on TV, which would be flickering. There was only stillness instead.
I could smell something strong and toxic when I opened the front door. Bleach was so powerful that it made my eyes hurt. We didn’t use it much, and when we did, we seldom used enough to fill the whole house. The smell led me to the basement door, which was partly open and light was coming up from below. My mind raced. I could hear a sound: harsh and frantic scratching against the concrete.
“Tom?” I yelled down.
The noises stopped straight quickly.
I hurried down the stairs with my heart beating and halted when I saw my husband on his knees in the middle of the room. He was sweating a lot and using a scrub brush to clean up a massive dark smear on the concrete that looked like spilled ink. The bad smell came from a bucket of bleach water next to him. There was a rolled-up rug against the concrete wall on the other side of the room. Next to it was a bulging black trash bag that was tightly tied at the top. Bag
He jumped when he saw me. “Kate!” You got home early. He hurried quickly to hide the stain from me.
“What’s going on?” I questioned, gazing at what was going on.
It sounded like he had practiced his answer because it came so quickly. “I spilled red wine. You know how it leaves a mark. I’m getting rid of that rug because it was also moldy. “Don’t worry about it.”
But it was already 9:00 p.m. Tom had never scrubbed floors like that before, let alone with such urgency. And wine didn’t smell like bleach. I pressed him, but all he said was, “Kate, trust me.” You don’t need to know everything.
He left early the next morning for “a meeting,” barely kissing me goodbye. When I tried to check the basement again, the door was locked. For the entire time I lived in that house, the basement was never locked. But it was clear that Tom didn’t want me to go back down there.
He was sad because I knew more about the house than he did. My grandma had hidden a spare key behind the old boiler, wrapped in a piece of fabric. I shook my hands and got it back, and then I opened the basement door.
The stain stayed, but it was hard to see clearly. The trash bag was still in the same spot, heavy and menacing. I untied the knot and looked inside. I couldn’t catch my breath.
It wasn’t old clothes or a rug. There was a white summer dress inside that looked delicate and expensive, but it was coated in dark stains. Tom’s favorite dress shirt had a tear on the inside. I sniffed the fabric by holding it up to my nose. There was no doubt that it was wine because it tasted bad.
But those clothes weren’t mine. Who owned it?
I took the outfit next door to Mrs. Talbot, our neighbor who is often looking. She would have been the one to notice something odd. She didn’t let me down. “Friday night,” she remarked in a flat voice. “Your Tom brought a girl home.” In a white dress, she looks quite pretty. They went in around seven. Her car was still there when I went to bed.
It felt like the ground was slanting under me.
That night when Tom got home, I talked to him about it. He went pale right away and seemed scared. He tried to dispute it at first, but when I told him I had found the clothes and talked to Mrs. Talbot, he caved in.
He answered, “Yes, someone came.” “But it’s not what you think.”
He explained that the woman was Claire, a coworker who was helping him get ready for a promotion. She had brought wine, and when she went to get files from the basement, the bottle spilled all over them. She was ashamed, so she borrowed one of my clothing so people wouldn’t think she had been in a bar fight on the way home. Tom said he panicked and tried to get rid of the stain before I got back because he was terrified of how it would look.
There were a lot of aspects in his story that made sense, yet something still didn’t feel right. I made sure to see Claire.
The next night, she came over for dinner. Mrs. Talbot was right about her: she was young, well-groomed, and sure of herself. She told the same story that Tom did. She even told me how often Tom had talked about me, stating that I was his anchor and the reason he kept grounded.
Her remarks disarmed me and made me believe for a moment that my suspicions might have clouded my judgment. After that, Tom and I sat together, and I made one rule.
I told him, “If this ever happens again and you make me doubt you like this, I won’t be able to forgive it.” Tom, I don’t fully trust you. “You only get one chance.”
He nodded genuinely and assured it would never happen again.
It might not have been true. The mark might have just been wine. But I knew deep down that trust isn’t always strong. When it’s broken, it never feels the same.
