The Wife

What will she do to keep her marriage intact?

Photo by behrouz sasani

It started when Eliza found the secret account her husband had online.

Scanning through his phone hadn’t been on her agenda until one night during a movie marathon he had gotten up to use the bathroom while she paused the film. She had noticed he kept glancing to the phone all throughout the viewing — rare, for him, given his nature to keep his attention on the screen throughout — and her curiosity reared its head.

Especially when a notification lit up the screen only seconds after he had gone.

She reached for the phone and swiped through — his passcode as familiar to her as her own birthday — only to see a social media profile of his that was new to her. The profile picture was a cartoon caricature of a dog.

But then she scrolled and saw his feed: just ten minutes ago, he had replied with a sassy comment to a woman’s scantily clad photo. Eliza’s stomach dropped as she continued to move down the timeline, more and more comments building up and telling her a secret narrative she had no idea had been unfolding.

Another woman might have shoved the phone away from her to go and decompress.

But, by the time her husband returned, Eliza still had the phone nestled in her lap between her palms.