She continued.
“The divorce destroyed me financially. I lost half my wardrobe when I moved because I couldn’t take everything. I see packages coming to your house constantly and you always have new things and…”
She stopped.
“And what?” I asked.
She looked embarrassed. “I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“I got jealous.”
That answer was so small compared to what she’d done that it almost made me angrier.
“You got jealous, so you opened my mail?”
“At first, I was just looking.”
“At first?”
She wiped her face. “I wanted to see what you bought.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I waited.
Then she said, “Because your life looks easy.”
I laughed once. “You have no idea what my life looks like.”
“I know.”
“No. You know what gets delivered to my porch.”
She looked down. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“You were thinking enough to put the tape back.”
Don’t miss
She had no answer. That was the part that mattered.
This wasn’t one impulsive mistake.
She had hidden it. Repeatedly.
Ryan asked, “Is everything here?”
Denise hesitated.
I noticed. “What else?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“What else?”
After another long pause, she went inside again.
This time, she returned with one of my missing kitchen towels, an unopened skincare product, and a bracelet I’d assumed had never shipped.
