The golf bag smelled like lavender the first time I noticed it. Not strong, just a trace. The kind of thing you catch and then second-guess yourself about. Gary doesn’t wear cologne. Never has. I’ve known this man for twenty-six years and I have never once seen him reach for a bottle of anything.

So when I leaned down to grab my gardening gloves from the closet shelf and caught that smell coming from his bag, I stopped. I just kind of stood there with my gloves in my hand.

I told myself it was nothing. I really did. I went outside and I pulled weeds for an hour and I told myself I was being crazy. But the thing is, once you notice something, you can’t un-notice it. That’s the part nobody tells you about. Your brain just keeps filing things away whether you want it to or not.

I unzipped the side pocket a few days later. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe nothing. A ball marker, some tees, the usual junk he throws in there. Instead I found a dress shirt. Folded. Neatly, actually, which is not like Gary at all because that man leaves his clothes on the floor like it’s a sport. Under the shirt was a silk tie. Blue with a thin stripe. And at the bottom, a receipt from a shop on Garrison Street. Forty-two dollars.

I put everything back exactly the way I found it. I don’t know why I did that. I think part of me wasn’t ready yet. I went and made coffee and sat at the kitchen table and just kind of stared at the wall for a while. The thing about suspecting your husband of something is that you feel stupid before you even know if you’re right. You feel stupid for looking, stupid for worrying, stupid for caring. You just feel stupid no matter what direction you go.

He plays golf on Thursdays. Has for years. Or that’s what I believed. He loads the bag into the trunk around noon and he’s back by dinnertime, maybe a little after. Always in a decent mood. Sometimes sunburned. I never questioned it. Why would I? We’ve had a normal marriage. Not a perfect one, obviously, nobody has that, but normal. Good, even, most of the time. So yeah. Eight months of Thursdays. I did the math later and I felt sick doing it.

I want to be honest about what I thought was happening, because that’s the whole point of even writing this out. I thought he was seeing someone. There. I thought my husband had someone on the side and I had spent eight months sleeping next to him not knowing. I had started going through the motions of what I’d say to him, what I’d take in the divorce, whether I’d call my sister first or my daughter. I had gotten that far in my head. That is how convinced I was.