Those two weeks were the longest of my life.
I didn’t say anything to Marco. I don’t know how I managed it. Every morning I woke up and he was already gone. Every night I went to bed and he wasn’t home yet. On the nights he came home early, before midnight, I’d sit across from him at dinner and watch him eat and think, Who are you?
He looked so tired. That was the worst part. He looked tired in a way I’d never seen anyone look tired. Like something was being pulled out of him a little at a time.
“You okay, amore?” he asked one night, reaching across the table for my hand. “You’re very quiet.”
“Just tired,” I said.
“Me too.” He squeezed my fingers. “Soon it will be easier. I promise.”
Soon. That word again.
I pulled my hand back to pick up my water glass. He didn’t notice.
One night, I couldn’t sleep. Marco was snoring softly beside me. It was almost three in the morning.
I got up and went into the bathroom. His work bag was hanging on the back of the door, the black canvas one he took to the “hospital” every day.
I stood there looking at it for a long time.
Three years of marriage. I’d never once gone through his things. It felt like crossing a line I couldn’t uncross.
I opened it anyway.
His wallet. His keys. A granola bar. A water bottle. A small notebook with a rubber band around it.
And at the bottom, a pair of black nitrile gloves. Like the ones in the booking site photo. One of them had a dark stain on the fingertip. Blue and brown, mixed together.
I opened the notebook.
It was full of drawings. Small, careful sketches in pencil. Circles and curves. Shading. Over and over, on every page. Some of them had notes next to them in Marco’s handwriting. Numbers. Measurements. Words I didn’t understand. Rose 4, umber 2, blush highlight. Asymmetric — match left. Scar tissue raised, go slow.
On one page, there was a name and a date. Gloria — Saturday.
On another, just a name. Ruth. Underlined twice. And next to it, a date.
The date was our anniversary.
I put everything back exactly the way I’d found it. I went back to bed. I lay beside my husband and stared at the ceiling until the sun came up.
The appointment was on a Thursday at two in the afternoon.
I called in sick to work. I’d never done that in eight years. When my principal asked if I was okay, I told her I had a stomach bug. It wasn’t really a lie. My stomach had been in knots for two weeks.
I put on jeans and a plain gray sweater. No makeup. I didn’t want to look like I was trying.
I didn’t tell Lucia. She’d have wanted to come. I needed to do this alone.
The drive took twenty-five minutes. I followed my phone’s directions out of town, past the strip malls and the car dealerships, past the old industrial park with its empty warehouses and chain-link fences. Route 17 turned into a two-lane road with fields on both sides.
The address was a one-story building made of tan brick. It sat by itself at the end of a gravel parking lot, next to a closed-down tire shop. It looked like it might have been a dentist’s office once, or an insurance agency. There were flower boxes under the windows with red geraniums in them. Someone was taking care of those geraniums.
I checked the address on my phone.
Then I checked it again.
Then a third time.
It was right. This was it.
It wasn’t a hospital. It wasn’t a clinic. It wasn’t anything. It was just an ordinary building on the outskirts of town.
There was a small sign by the door. Wooden, hand-painted. Green letters on cream.
Seconda Pelle.
I sat in my car for ten minutes. There were five other cars in the lot. One of them was Marco’s. His silver Honda, with the dent in the back bumper from when I backed it into a mailbox last winter.
My husband was in that building. Right now. Doing whatever it was that he’d been lying to me about for two years.
I got out of the car.
The door opened onto a small waiting room.
It was nothing like I’d imagined. I’d pictured something cold and medical. Or something dark and seedy. It was neither. It was warm. Soft lighting. Cream-colored walls. Comfortable chairs with cushions. A rug on the floor. Plants everywhere. A little table with a teapot and cups and a plate of cookies.
Soft music was playing. Piano. Something classical.
Behind a wooden desk sat a receptionist.
She was beautiful. That was the first thing I noticed. Late twenties or early thirties. Long dark hair in a braid over one shoulder. Big brown eyes. A soft smile. She was wearing a simple white blouse buttoned all the way up.
My stomach turned over.
“Hi,” she said warmly. “Welcome. Do you have an appointment?”
“Yes.” My voice cracked. “Elena. Varga.”
She looked at her computer. “Elena, yes. Two o’clock. Consultation.” She smiled at me again. “You’re a little early. That’s good. Marco will see you shortly.”
Marco. She said his name like she knew him. Like she knew him well.
“Have a seat,” she said. “Help yourself to tea. Can I get you anything?”
“No. Thank you.”
I turned around.
Four women were sitting in the waiting room.
One of them looked about twenty-five. She had short blond hair and wore a long-sleeved shirt even though it was warm inside. She was holding her sleeves pulled down over her hands, gripping them in her fists.
Next to her was a woman in her forties, with red hair and freckles, flipping through a magazine without really looking at it.
Across from them, a woman in her fifties, Black, very elegant, in a navy blue dress. Her hands were folded in her lap. She was looking out the window.
And in the corner, a tiny old woman who must have been nearly seventy. White hair in a bun. A cardigan with pearl buttons. Her purse held tightly on her knees with both hands. She was the only one who looked at me when I came in. She smiled. A small, kind smile.
I sat down in the only empty chair, next to the old woman.
Nobody spoke.
The piano music kept playing. The receptionist typed softly on her computer.
After a minute, the old woman leaned over to me.
“First time, dear?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She patted my hand. Her skin was papery and cool.
“Me too,” she said. “I’ve been waiting twenty-two years for this. I almost didn’t come. My daughter drove me.” She nodded toward the window. Outside, a woman was sitting in a car in the parking lot, looking at her phone. “She’s waiting outside. I told her I wanted to do this part by myself.”
“Do what part?” I asked.
The old woman looked at me strangely.
“You don’t know?”
Before I could answer, the receptionist’s phone buzzed. She picked it up and listened. Then she said quietly, “Okay. Thank you.”
She looked up.
“Mrs. Ferraro? Gloria? He’s running about ten minutes behind. He says he’s so sorry.”
“That’s all right, honey,” said the old woman beside me. “I’ve waited twenty-two years. I can wait ten more minutes.”
Gloria.
Gloria — Saturday. From the notebook.
The receptionist said Marco’s name again, and I watched what happened in the room. All four of the women went strangely quiet. Quieter than before. The red-haired woman stopped turning the pages of her magazine. The young blond woman’s grip tightened on her sleeves. The elegant woman in navy closed her eyes for a moment, like she was praying.
It was like his name was something sacred.
Or something they were afraid of.
I couldn’t tell which.
Adrian Hawthorne is a celebrated author and dedicated archivist who finds inspiration in the hidden stories of the past. Educated at Oxford, he now works at the National Archives, where preserving history fuels his evocative writing. Balancing archival precision with creative storytelling, Adrian founded the Hawthorne Institute of Literary Arts to mentor emerging writers and honor the timeless art of narrative.