He exhaled.
“She’s someone I know through work.”
“What’s her name?”
He hesitated.
“Marcus.”
“Olivia.”
The name seemed difficult for him to say.
“Her name is Olivia. It was work-related.”
I had never heard the name Olivia before.
I asked what she did.
He told me she consulted for one of their vendors.
I asked why he had never mentioned meeting her.
He insisted it wasn’t dinner.
I asked what it was.
“A meeting.”
“At 10:47 at night?”
“We finished late. That’s all.”
I looked back toward his car.
The red bra hanging from the windshield wiper.
A black one looped around the driver’s mirror.
At least a dozen other pieces scattered across the hood.
“Why would someone cover your car in lingerie because you hugged a coworker?”
“I don’t know.”
“That seems to be your favorite answer this morning.”
We went back inside.
And somehow, the silence in our house felt worse than the scene outside.
