Two minutes remained.

I smoothed the front of the navy dress Bob once told me made me look like the woman he had fallen in love with.

The roast was still warm.

The wine had already been poured.

I had even planned to tease him by saying, “Uncle John would just have to survive without you.”

Exactly at 6:30, I heard Bob lift his car keys from the hook beside the door.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered.

He walked into the dining room with his coat already in his hands. He barely noticed the dinner I’d prepared before slipping it on.

He barely looked at me either.

“Uncle John’s cat is stuck in a tree,” he said.

I couldn’t help laughing.

“His cat,” I repeated. “Tonight? On our anniversary night, Bob?”

“He’s panicking, Penelope. You know how he gets.”

“I don’t know how he gets Bob! I’ve never met him! In seven years of marriage, I’ve never met him!”

Bob calmly buttoned his coat as though I hadn’t spoken.

“Tell him to call the fire department,” I said. “That’s what fire departments are for. Bob, look at me!”

My husband looked at me with the same detached expression someone gives a chair they’re about to move aside.

“I didn’t realize you were so heartless,” he said.

Then he walked out.

The door closed quietly behind him, almost gently, and somehow that hurt more than if he had slammed it.

I lowered myself into the chair at the table I had spent hours preparing.

I stared at the empty seat across from me until candle wax dripped onto the tablecloth.

Something inside me finally broke.

I don’t remember choosing to go upstairs.

The next thing I knew, I was standing in the guest room, pulling open the drawer where Bob kept his old address book with family phone numbers.

My hands shook as I flipped through pages of aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Then I found it.

Uncle John’s landline, written in Bob’s handwriting years earlier.

I dialed.

After four rings, an older woman answered, sounding warm and slightly out of breath, as though she’d hurried to the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Um. My name is Penelope. You know Bob? I’m his wife. I’m sorry to call so late, but I need you to please tell Uncle John that Bob has his own family and…”

Silence.

I stopped talking and forced myself to breathe.

“I’m sorry, dear. You said you’re Bob’s wife?”

“Yes,” I replied. “John’s nephew. He is sister Marie’s son.”

The silence lasted even longer.

For a moment I wondered if the call had disconnected.

Finally the woman spoke.

“Sweetheart,” she said gently. “My name is Sylvia. I was John’s wife.”

“Was?”

“Honey,” Aunt Sylvia answered softly, “John died 10 years ago.”

A sound escaped my throat before I could stop it.

“Are you sure you haven’t mixed something up?” she asked kindly. “Maybe there’s another John in the family?”

My entire body turned cold.

“No,” I whispered. “It’s Bob’s mother’s brother.”

“That’s my John,” Aunt Sylvia said. “And honey, I haven’t heard from Bob in years. Not since before the funeral. He hasn’t come here.”

I sat heavily on the edge of the guest bed because my legs suddenly refused to hold me.

“Aunt Sylvia,” I whispered, “Are you telling me that for three years, every single night, when my husband said he was going to help Uncle John, he was lying?”

“I don’t know where he’s been going,” she replied quietly. “But it isn’t to my home.”

I couldn’t even remember ending the call.

Three years.

More than a thousand evenings.

Every excuse built on the name of a man who had been gone for a decade.

I stared at the wall as the truth settled over me.

I realized I didn’t actually know the man I had married.

Looking at my reflection in the dark window, I made a decision that surprised even me.

I wasn’t going to confront him.

I was going to let him keep talking.

Around ten that night, Bob unlocked the front door.

I was already sitting on the couch holding a paperback I hadn’t read a single page of.

As he stepped inside, I caught that same unfamiliar floral scent lingering on his clothes.

I laid the book aside and smiled as naturally as I could.

“How’s Uncle John’s dog doing? Is everything okay?”

Bob paused while slipping off his coat.

Only for a heartbeat.

Then the familiar smile returned.

“Oh, he’s doing great. And Uncle John is feeling better, too. Thanks for asking, honey.”

I lowered my eyes to the book so he wouldn’t see my expression.

A dog.

When he left, it had been a cat stuck in a tree.

He had become so comfortable lying that he couldn’t even remember which story he had invented.

That was all the proof I needed.

Whatever waited for him every evening at 6:30, it certainly wasn’t Uncle John.

And I intended to find out.

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