I hand-delivered my husband his morning coffee today, kissed him on the cheek, and watched him drink it down to the very last drop. He thought I was just being a dutiful, loving wife helping him get ready for his “important Monday morning business meeting.” What he didn’t know was that I had spent the last ten minutes secretly dissolving a massive dose of a heavy-duty laxative into the dark roast.
I knew exactly where he was actually going, and I wanted to make sure his romantic little rendezvous with his lover would be memorable for all the wrong reasons. I expected to feel a twinge of guilt, but as I watched his throat swallow the liquid, all I felt was a profound, icy satisfaction.
The morning had started with the suffocating scent of expensive women’s perfume echoing through our master bedroom.
It wasn’t mine. It was the exact high-end fragrance I’d seen her beg him for in a hidden text message on his phone just the night before. I watched from the shadow of the doorway as Bruno stood in front of the mirror, meticulously smoothing down the crisp blue button-up shirt he always claimed was reserved for his highest-paying corporate clients. He was humming to himself, spraying the sweet, floral perfume on his neck, his wrists, and his chest.
It was entirely too much effort for a routine work trip. It was entirely too much smiling for a Monday morning from a man who hadn’t even noticed when I chopped six inches off my hair and dyed it a completely different color last month.
While he was busy perfecting his appearance for another woman, I walked down the hallway into the kitchen of our suburban Del Valle home. My hands were shaking, but my mind was clearer than it had been in years. I watched the dark coffee drip slowly into his favorite black ceramic mug—the one our kids had saved up their allowance to buy him, the one that ironically read “Best Husband” in bold silver letters.
What a beautiful, sick mockery a simple cup can be. In my palm, I gripped the small plastic bottle I’d purchased at a pharmacy two towns over. I am not going to call what I did an impulse. Impulse implies a momentary lapse in judgment, a flash of anger that burns out as quickly as it ignites. My actions were the product of months of systemic emotional torture.
They were built from the ground up by whispered phone calls that abruptly cut off the second my foot hit the hardwood floor, by the endless cycle of “the meeting ran long,” and by the agonizing scent of sweet, unfamiliar perfume clinging to his laundry.
I put the bottle away, stirred the coffee thoroughly to ensure it was completely dissolved, and walked it out to him with a practiced smile. He took it, praised me for being so thoughtful, and drank it all before kissing me goodbye and pulling out of the driveway. I spent the next two hours driving aimlessly around the neighborhood, letting the adrenaline fade into a heavy, exhausting reality. I finally decided to head back home to pack a suitcase of my absolute essentials before he could return from his little tryst. I imagined him mid-date, suddenly overcome by the intense medication, forced to abandon his romantic lunch to desperately hunt down a public restroom while his mistress looked on in disgust. It was a petty revenge, sure, but it was the only control I had left.
