I had Richard’s winter coat over one arm and was already walking toward the door when something made me stop. I laid it on the kitchen table and went through the pockets the way I always do before the cleaners.

Wallet, a few crumpled receipts, and then this small brass key that did not look like any key we had.

It had numbers stamped on it and the name of the postal branch over on Monroe. That branch is twenty minutes from the house and nowhere near his office. I stood there turning it over in my hand for a good minute.

Richard had been going to Tuesday bowling for three years now. I had told him plenty of times that he was not good enough at it to need a league every single week. He just laughed and said the guys liked having him around for the laughs.

I put the key in my purse and drove to that post office on Thursday afternoon. The place was quiet. I walked up to box 1147 and slid the key in. The little door clicked open and I pulled out a stack of envelopes and papers.

There were eleven birthday cards, all addressed to Richard but sent to that box. Three school pictures of the same little girl. One crayon drawing signed Emma in big letters. And a return address on Birch Lane that I recognized right away.

I sat in my car in the parking lot and opened the first card. It was from a few years back. Simple message about hoping he was well. The next ones got longer. The most recent photo showed the girl at maybe nine years old. Dark hair, same jawline Richard has in every picture from when he was a boy.

That is when I knew the woman on Birch Lane had to be Diane from the bowling league. She was always the one who called to remind him about the schedule. I had met her twice at those end-of-season dinners. She seemed nice enough.

I drove past the address on Birch Lane the next day. It was a small house with a swing set in the side yard. A woman came out to get the mail and I recognized Diane right away even from down the block. She had the same dark hair as the girl in the photos.

The next few weeks I kept the key in my dresser drawer and tried to act normal. Richard came home from bowling every Tuesday like clockwork. He would kiss my cheek and tell me how the team did. I asked him once if Diane was still on the team and he said yes without looking up from his paper.

I went back to the post office one more time. There was a new envelope inside. It had been mailed only a week earlier. I took it home and waited until Richard left for work before I opened it.