It Happened on Maple Street

He felt kind of panicky just the same.

“That’s it, then? You have nothing to say?”

He tried to meet her gaze. Those blue eyes pissed him off. They said she cared. And clearly she didn’t.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. Ask me to stay. Ask me why. Something.”

Possibility walked back in the door. “If I asked you to stay, would you?” They were in foreign territory. He wasn’t going to just put it right out there.

“No.”

That pissed him off all over again. What kind of game was she playing with him now?

“I’ve met someone else.”

She should have just slapped him or something.

“Then why are you still here?” A guy could only take so much.

“Because we’ve been together for more than twenty years. I didn’t think it was right to just walk out without a word.”

“But it’s okay to see someone else behind my back?” She’d slept in his bed the night before, and how many nights before that while she was seeing another man?

“It wasn’t like that.”

He didn’t want to hear any more.

“I didn’t mean to, Tim. I . . . he’s a sales guy from work and for a long time we just talked when he came in.”

She was still in human relations, with a medical supply firm.

“How long’s a long time?” He stared at her then. Pinning her like a bug to a wall. He hoped.

She glanced away, and he really just wanted to go get the RV and get on the road. Except then he’d have to come back home. To an empty house. “I don’t know. A year maybe.”

A year. They’d gone to Florida just a few months ago. Had a honeymoon-like vacation. She’d said so herself.

“How often does he ‘come in’?”

“About once a week. He lives in Indiana but has several clients in the Dayton area.”

And how many other women did the bastard screw on his route?

“Is he married?”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

Her softly spoken “Yes” convinced him of far more than he was asking, and he knew.

“You’ve been to his house.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve slept with him.”