Page 3 of Wall

“No fire. Everyone’s fine.”

I should be relieved, but he’s bent over, his forearms braced on his thighs, his head hanging. He looks defeated.

“Did you lose your job?”

“Can you sit, Mona?”

I do, my heart pounding quicker and quicker. Something’s wrong. The room is so quiet. I can hear the blood rushing in my ears.

I want to smack him. Demand that he tells me what’s going on. This is John, though. He does things in his own time. I bite my lower lip and force myself to wait.

The clock ticks on the wall. In the kitchen, the icemaker clatters.

John squares his shoulders, straightens his spine, and looks me in the eye. “Mona, I…I, uh. I’ve been with someone else.”

I must have misheard. “What do you mean?”

“Last night…I, um. I was with someone else.”

I press my hands to my face. Tears blur my eyes. My brain’s stuck, but my body’s tumbling forward without me.

“I don’t understand.”

“After the run. I got drunk. There was a woman. I, uh. I had sex with her.”

Everything inside of me drops. Stomach. Heart. Like I didn’t know it, but my whole self was held up by strings, and someone came along with a pair of scissors, and before I could blink—Snip. Snip. Crash.

I lurch to my feet. He stays there on the couch, still and rigid.

“No.” Our wedding picture is on the wall. He changed the oil in my car yesterday before he left for the run. This doesn’t make sense.

“Why?” I don’t wait for him to answer. “Do you love her?”

“I don’t really know her.”

Is that better? Does that make it worse? I’m gonna puke. Oh, God. Acid sours my throat. “Who is she? DoIknow her?”

“Her name’s Stephanie. She hangs around the clubhouse.”

I don’t really know the people from the MC. John took me to a few events when he first joined, but the women were cliquey, and then recently, I don’t really feel like going out much anymore.

I never worried, though. Steel and Smoke aren’t a bunch of outlaw bikers or anything. They’re family guys.

But there were women. Fun women who ride, who wear cowboy hats and painted-on jeans. Women who jump up to dance as soon as the music comes on.

Did I ever meet a Stephanie?

“What does she look like?” I stare down at my sweatpants. Not even yoga pants. Men’s sweatpants with a cartoon Tasmanian devil on the thigh.

“I don’t know—”

“You don’t know?” My voice edges toward hysterical.

He doesn’t answer. He hangs his head, and then a lifetime later, he lifts his chin and says, “I’m so sorry, Mona. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“How many times?”

“I never done this before. I swear.” He lets out a rattling breath. “God, Mona. I’m so sorry.”

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