He disappeared through the back door.
This time he was gone for almost fifteen minutes.
Taking out the garbage normally took less than two.
When he returned, I asked what had taken so long.
“The bin lid was stuck.”
Then he sat down and continued watching television.
There was only one problem.
Our trash bin had never had a sticking lid.
Not once.
My name is Diane.
I had been married to Robert for twenty-nine years, and before that week he had never given me any serious reason to distrust him.
Robert wasn’t mysterious.
He told me almost everything.
If he stopped at the hardware store, I heard about what the cashier said.
If traffic was bad, I got a full description.
He was predictable in the reassuring way that long marriages often become predictable.
That was why his tiny lie bothered me so much.
It wasn’t dramatic.
