There was a nice brown leather couch pushed against the far wall. A floor lamp was standing next to it, casting a soft, yellow light. There was a coffee table, and on it, a stack of glossy magazines.

I walked in and felt like I was trespassing in a ghost’s house. My heart was thumping against my ribs.

I turned around and saw the stacks along the side. They were vacuum-sealed bags. Dozens of them. I reached out and touched one. I could see the color of a dress inside. A floral pattern. I looked at the shoe rack near the door. There were at least ten pairs of women’s shoes neatly arranged. None of them were mine.

I walked over to the coffee table. My breath felt trapped in my throat. There was a framed photograph sitting right in the middle, face up. I picked it up. My knees almost buckled. It was Robert. He was standing in front of a porch of a house I had never seen in my life. He had his arm around a woman. She was younger, maybe in her thirties, with dark hair and a bright, happy smile.

He looked happier in that picture than he had looked with me in years. I felt a wave of cold wash over me. I just stood there because my brain kind of stopped working for a second. I wanted to scream, but there was nobody to hear me. I just stared at her face until it started to blur.

Then I saw the paper tucked behind the frame. It was a lease agreement. I pulled it out and my hands were trembling so much I could barely hold the paper still. It was for a house in a town about forty miles north of here.

The lease was dated for three months from now. It was for a two-bedroom place.

It was an exit plan. He wasn’t just having a fling. He was building a new life. He had been planning this for months, maybe years. I looked back at the clothes in the bags and the couch and the lamp. He had been furnishing his future while I was busy making dinner and waiting for him to come home from the lodge.

I heard the rumble of a truck pulling into the gate outside. My blood ran cold. I knew it wasn’t him, but I panicked anyway. I shoved the lease back behind the photo and set it exactly where I found it. I had to get out of there. I didn’t even take a photo of the evidence. I just ran to my car and drove until I couldn’t breathe anymore.