fun hally

They had been married for seven years when she started leaving the house every Thursday evening. She said she had joined a women’s fellowship at a church two towns away. She said the meetings helped her. He never argued. He would watch her dress, kiss her forehead, and tell her to be careful on the road. One Thursday he finished work early. He decided to surprise her and drive her home. He reached the church gate at the time she usually left. The place was dark. The security man said no women’s meeting had been held there in months. He sat in the car and waited. Forty minutes later she came out of a building across the road. A man walked her to the junction. They stood talking for a while. Before she entered a keke, the man touched her face the way someone touches a person they have touched many times before. He did not follow her. He drove home another way and was already in the parlour when she arrived. She smiled and said the meeting had gone long. He smiled back and asked if she was hungry. For three weeks he said nothing. He watched her. He checked the mileage. He noticed she had started wearing a perfume he had never bought. On the fourth Thursday he left work at the normal time but parked two streets away from the building. He saw her go in. He waited. When she came out with the same man, he stepped forward. The man saw him first and stopped. She turned and her face changed. “Who is this?” the man asked her. She did not answer immediately. The man looked at her, then at him, and said, “You told me you were a widow.” She closed her eyes. The man shook his head, got into his car, and drove away without another word. She stood on the pavement with her bag in both hands. He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “The children are at my sister’s place. I already told her you might be late.” He walked back to his car. She did not follow. That night she came home after midnight. He was still awake. She stood in the doorway and said the man had blocked her. She said she was sorry. She said it had only been a few months. He nodded. He did not raise his voice. He simply told her the children would stay with his sister for a while. In the morning he moved his things into the spare room. She still cooked. She still asked about his day. He answered, but he no longer sat with her after the children were asleep. Three months later she asked if they could try again. He said he did not know. She has not asked a second time. Some evenings he still hears her crying softly in the other room. He does not go to her. And she has stopped leaving the house on Thursdays.