My husband finally stopped trying to avoid the question. He admitted that he had lost his job a week earlier. He hadn’t been going to work at all. Instead, he had been pretending to leave for his night shift because he was embarrassed and afraid to tell me what had happened. He didn’t know how I would react, and he feared disappointing me. Rather than face the truth, he had chosen to hide it and act as though his normal routine was continuing.

That explained why he had unexpectedly appeared in the kitchen the previous evening. While I believed he was working, he had actually been staying home at times, helping care for the children and spending time with them. The babysitter’s presence had been completely innocent. The youngest child had spilled milk on her clothes, and with the children asleep, she had taken a quick shower after changing. There had been no secret relationship or inappropriate behavior. The situation that had seemed so suspicious was the result of a different secret altogether.