“It’s okay.”

I poured myself some water and stood at the kitchen counter thinking of Dave and his prayers. Just a few inches from my glass I spied Dave’s cell phone, a black Razr. He’d set it down next to his keys when he came back from praying for us at church. Instantly I was mesmerized by the phone. I could just make out the time in the slick black screen, letting me know the phone was on.

“So where else did you go while I was napping?” I called back to him in the bedroom.

“Just home and then to church. I wanted to get back here to my sweetheart,” Dave yelled.

My hand lay on the counter next to my glass, just inches from his phone. My heart was pounding ferociously. Staring at the phone, I thought that I just wanted to know; I just wanted to be sure. Moving quickly, I picked up the phone and flipped it open, cringing in anticipation of some sort of cell phone warning jingle.

But the phone didn’t make a peep. Fingering the smooth buttons, I quickly pressed the button labeled “calls,” which spitted me into the menu asking me for “received calls” or “dialed calls.” My thumb pressed the button for “dialed calls.” The screen quickly filled with a uniform column of the same name that had been dialed over and over: “CLO.”

“CLO” was pretty self-explanatory. Scrolling down the list, I saw he’d dialed me three times and CLO seven times.

That was like the score from a really boring football game, and I’d lost. Clicking the last time he’d called CLO, I could see it was today at 3:44, lasting for thirty-five minutes. Mapquesting the drive time to St. Monica’s Church in my head, I grimaced: It just didn’t add up that he would have been able to be on the phone that long and go to church.

“Baby, come back in here, and lie down with me,” Dave called out from the bedroom.

Still holding his phone, I thought of the red Mercedes. I saw myself looking through his receipts and address book log. I thought about how Dave had said that he’d just “hung out with Chloe,” but the red Mercedes had stayed in his driveway all night.

I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t end up like Mom, checking in the car trunk by the spare tire.

“Dave, can you come here a sec?”

“Sure.” I heard the bed springs bounce under him as he got up and quickly shuffled toward the kitchen.

“I love you, I love you,” he singsonged. As he got closer, his smile faded when he saw me holding his phone.

“Hey, what’s Chloe’s number?” I asked, making his phone dance a little jig with my hand. “I’d love to call her right now and have her come over so the three of us could talk.”