I couldn’t let it go. It was like a splinter in my mind. I went to a different lab the next town over a few days later. I paid $280 out of my own pocket so he wouldn’t see it on our shared bank statement. I waited in that sterile, white room for what felt like years. When the results came back, it was positive again.

I sat in my car in the parking lot and just breathed. The technician had told me something I couldn’t get out of my head. “Your husband needs testing,” she had said, very quiet. “This strain is transmitted through blood or intimate contact.”

I went home and filed an insurance claim using his information. I was trying to force his hand. I called his doctor’s office, but they wouldn’t tell me a thing because of HIPAA laws. I felt like a stranger in my own marriage. I had to wait two weeks for the mail.

When the envelope finally arrived, I opened it in the kitchen. I didn’t even go to the table. I just tore it open right by the sink. It said negative. I felt a wave of relief so strong my knees actually buckled. I leaned against the counter and closed my eyes. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe I was just looking for problems where there weren’t any.

Then, the phone rang. It was the lab. The technician sounded confused.

“I am sorry to bother you,” she said, “but we sent the results to the second address on his file. We wanted to make sure you got the notice.”

I frowned. “What second address?”

She gave me an address in a neighborhood I barely knew. A little apartment complex on the other side of the river. I drove there an hour later. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I just knew I couldn’t go back to that house without knowing the truth.

The building was run-down and the paint was peeling off the siding. I found the unit number the technician gave me. I stood in front of the door for a long time. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff. I heard voices inside. A man and a woman.

I knocked. The door opened, and Clifford was standing there in a robe. He wasn’t surprised. He just looked tired. He looked at me like I was an inconvenience he had finally stopped trying to hide.

“Faye,” he said. He didn’t try to close the door.

“Is this yours?” I asked. My voice sounded flat and hollow.

He didn’t answer. He just stepped aside so I could see into the small, messy living room. There was a woman sitting on the sofa. She looked very young. She looked sick.

“His results aren’t negative,” I whispered, thinking of what the technician had told me over the phone. “Same strain.”