Maybe I should’ve thought about what this knowledge meant for my job or what it meant for Lonnie’s marriage or, at the very least, what it meant for my attraction to Carlow, but instead, I stood there, with some kind of stomach-sick bursting inside of me, and considered what kind of sex they must be having. The quiet fucking. He couldn’t bite her or slap her around. The restraint like a form of poetry. I stood there holding the sheets on which her baby had just vomited and compared their fucking to a sonnet. It must just drive him mad, I thought. The things he must want to do to her would be impossible to cover up. How could you fuck a woman like that without needing to leave a mark?

6

AFTER I FOUND OUT ABOUT THE AFFAIR I STARTED OPENING drawers I had no business opening, taking an inventory of her home in a notebook. I wrote it all down, partially to slow my progress. I was conscious that I could look through everything, every nook and cranny, in a matter of days—or hours, even, depending on how well behaved William was—but this gave me a sick feeling, like eating an entire cake by myself. I could digest this secret information only in thin slices. Listing everything I found was a way of considerably protracting the process.

Junk drawer, kitchen, I wrote one day, light bulbs, batteries, rubber bands, thumbtacks, empty baby food jar, yellow-handled scissors, large white knit doily (folded in tissue paper).

Another day I swung the door of her medicine cabinet open and I was immediately enraged by the lack of products, the empty shelf space. I found the cheap tube of liquid eyeliner Lonnie used to dress up. A single bottle of ballerina-pink nail polish. French men’s cologne with a black and silver label. James’s shaving set. A tube of coral lipstick. A slippery jar of coconut oil sat on top of the cabinet near the vanity lights, a few globs in the process of dripping down into the cabinet. That was all.

I slid the shower curtain back and examined the caddy hanging from the nozzle. Peppermint shampoo, a diluted jar of apple cider vinegar she probably used as conditioner. Simple castile soap and a goo-filled jar without a label. I opened it, ran the product between my fingers, tasted it with the tip of my tongue—coconut oil and salt.

What had I been hoping to find? A complicated skin-care routine that would explain her utter porelessness? Expensive hair masks, a lot of unnoticeable makeup? Something that said I am this beautiful because of class? Something that said if I lacked funds I might be as flawed as you are?