When the Rain Comes

“Your wife is sleeping with my husband. It wasn't just once.”

The man across the café table went still. Claire watched him recover, his expression closing before she could read much more. Rain fell outside the window. She lowered her eyes to the wedding ring on her hand; he wore one too.

“I'm not trying to break up your marriage,” she said. “But they've been together for a while.”

He took a breath and straightened his jacket. “I understand. If that's everything, I should go.”

“You don't believe me?”

He stopped. “We don't know each other. You've come here to accuse my wife. Whatever the state of our marriage, I shouldn't assume she's guilty before I know the truth.”

“I have proof.”

Something shifted in his face.

“Are you willing to look?”

“Please.”

Claire reached for her phone.

“Your wife is sleeping with my husband. It wasn't just once.”

Claire Bennett sat across from Nathan Reed at a wooden table in a quiet café. Rain fell beyond the window. She watched the brief shock cross his face, then the effort he made to contain it. Her own eyes were wet, and she looked down before continuing, her hands folded in her lap. The ring on her finger was still there. Across the table, he held his hands together too, his own wedding band plainly visible.

“I'm not trying to break up your marriage,” she said. “But your wife and my husband—they've been together for a while.”

Nathan said nothing for a moment. Then he drew a deep breath, adjusted his jacket, and began to rise.

“I understand. If that's everything, I should go.”

“You don't believe me?” Claire asked quickly.

He stopped and looked at her.

“It isn't that I don't believe you. We've never met, and you've come here to accuse my wife. As her husband, whatever the state of our marriage, I shouldn't suspect her before I've found out the truth.”

“I have proof.”

He looked at her again, his expression changing slightly.

“Are you willing to look?”

“Please.”

Claire reached for the phone on the table. She had first noticed something was wrong a month earlier.

Music played in the sunlit yoga studio as the class moved through its stretches. Claire, in white workout clothes, stretched beside her friend Lily Parker, who wore yellow.

“So you've been married for two years,” Lily murmured, “and you still haven't had sex?”

Claire kept her voice low. “He left the country for a project the day we got married. Since he came back, he's been busy all the time. We haven't had the chance.”

“There's something wrong with your husband. Two years without sleeping with his wife? Either he's gay or he's seeing someone else.”

Claire's expression changed. Before she could settle what to make of that, their instructor came over. Vanessa Cole, dressed in red, placed her hands on Claire's shoulders and adjusted her posture.

“Good. Now the other way. Open your shoulders. Very good.”

A light fragrance came with her. Claire turned her head slightly, noticing the woman beside her.

After class, Claire and Lily walked through the hotel's wide hallway toward the elevators.

“I kept smelling jasmine during class,” Lily said. “It turns out it's Vanessa's perfume. Did you know she's Nathan Reed's wife?”

Claire stopped, looking at her phone. “Who's Nathan Reed?”

“The brilliant doctor who was poisoned a few years ago. A man attacked him over a medical dispute. He almost died. It was everywhere for more than a month. People kept saying it was the biggest loss medicine had suffered in ten years. He teaches at Bayport University now. My cousin's one of his students.”

At the elevator, Lily pressed the button. The doors opened, and they stepped inside.

As Claire turned, a man in glasses and a beige trench coat approached from the other end of the hallway. Her gaze met his briefly. Nathan Reed passed without taking notice of her; she watched him in silence.

Now he sat opposite her in the café, waiting to see her proof.