For Three Months, My Husband’s Side of the Bed Smelled Like Something Was Rotting… When I Finally Cut It Open, the Truth Destroyed Everything

There were other things in the purse. A lipstick tube. A grocery receipt so old the ink had ghosted. A set of keys on a faded university lanyard. And folded into the coin compartment, a photo. 

Miguel.

You stared at it until your vision thinned.

It was an older picture of him, younger by maybe ten years, standing beside the woman from the license. His arm was around her waist. Her head leaned against his shoulder. Both of them were smiling into sun so bright it washed the edges of the print.

On the back, in neat handwriting, were five words.

Flagstaff, our first weekend away.

The room seemed to tilt.

You sat there on the floor with the purse in your lap and suddenly understood two things at once. The first was that the smell had never been accidental. The second was that you did not know your husband