Thirty-seven minutes after I got off the phone with the dry cleaner, I sat down at the kitchen table with my laptop and I looked up the church in the photo. Saint Catherine of Siena.

I found their records online, the newsletter archive they keep public. I searched Marcus’s last name. A baptism announcement. Four years ago. Elena and Marcus Navarro are joyful to announce the baptism of their daughter, Rosa. I actually laughed. Out loud. By myself in the kitchen. Because his name is Marcus and apparently so is the other life.

I thought about all the Tuesdays. Every other Tuesday, she drives to the dry cleaner. Pays cash. The kids wait in the car, maybe, or stand next to her. They probably know the woman behind the counter by now. Four years of Tuesdays. He has been doing this for six years total but the children, from what I could figure, the older one would be about seven now and the younger one maybe five. Which means he was already with her when I had my miscarriage. Which means he sat with me in that hospital room and held my hand through that, and then drove 25 minutes home to a different family.

I need to not think about that part for too long or I genuinely cannot keep writing this.

He came home at 6:40 that evening. I heard him before I saw him, which is normal, because Marcus always hums when he’s in a good mood. Little fragments of whatever is stuck in his head. He was humming something I didn’t recognize and he dropped his keys in the bowl by the door and called out that he’d stopped for gas and did I need anything from the store tomorrow. Very normal. Very Tuesday.