Evidence of the Affair

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

It is funny the crazy things our brains make up to save us from the truth.

Mick Riva albums.

fuck this guy lol

It was just easier to consider the possibility that he’d changed his entire personality overnight than it was to believe that he would cheat.

I guess I find it pretty easy to look like nothing is happening when everything has changed.

There are so many things that have to be done in a day, and none of them are for me, none of them are what I want. But as I go about all of it now, I think of you. I think of the woman I am when I’m alone with you. With you, I am enjoying myself. I am doing what I want. I am living, in our moments together, with no worries.

It is as if I have lived with a hard shell all over my body and you have cracked it and it has all fallen off. I am fresh again.

What I am saying is that I am alone in this, David. Except for you. You are the only person who understands exactly what I am going through. And I hope I can be that same thing for you. We are not alone. We at least know of each other. It is a very lame consolation prize, but I will take it if you will.

Thank you for being there for me. I know you only as handwriting on a page, and yet you might be my closest friend. Tell me more about yourself, your life. I’d love to listen as you have for me.

Do you ever feel like your life got away from you somehow? Lately, it feels like my whole life has a similar feeling to when you check the clock on a Saturday and realize it’s already half past four.

Lying has just become so much easier than telling the truth. I don’t remember when things got so hard. But life has been a matter of keeping our heads above water for years now.

Often, I feel overwhelmed by this sinking feeling in my heart that I will never be enough. That I am damaged and any man in his right mind would leave me.

I imagine that my husband looks at your wife and sees a real woman. And I am afraid that I will lose the life I have built to a woman who can give him what he wants. There. I’ve said it. Or written it, as it were. The ugliest, most pathetic parts of my heart.

I promise you there is no ugly part of your heart.

It’s funny, but the moment you walked into the dining room I knew it was you. I think it was your hair. You told me it was gray, but you are selling yourself short. It still has a salt-and-pepper look to it, especially the way it darkens on the sides. It’s very becoming. To be frank, that was my first thought: He doesn’t give himself enough credit.

I find it perhaps even more comforting to know that it is you I have been confiding in all along.

But I’m pretty sure talking to a beautiful woman about the various merits of the Dodgers and the Padres could lift even the most suffocating of clouds off any man’s head.

I was struck with the feeling that I had never seen a woman so alive. Your eyes were so bright and your smile so wide. One word appeared in my head: vivacious.

You seemed like a dream, an apparition. But you are real. So very real.

In the fall, I used to watch as the leaves went from green to yellow to orange and red. And then I always hated December—that was when they fell off, and it seemed like they would never come back. But then April came around, and the sun came out and the leaves started sprouting and life began again. It seemed like the most exquisite thing in the world.

I’ve always been struck by the idea that you can’t be all that happy something has returned if it doesn’t go away in the first place.

Then I moved on to Daisy Jones and Carole King.

The phone call from you did wonders to break the spell. I was sitting at the kitchen table still crying when the phone rang, and I swear I knew there was something special about the call before I even picked it up.

Thank you for telling me that everything will be OK. I don’t think either of us is sure about that right now, but it feels nice to hear someone say it.

There I am, hoping someone might choose me, while the rest of the world goes on dancing. But lately I find that in those moments, I think of you. I am not alone at the party. You are at this miserable party with me. And it brings a smile to my face to be standing next to you.

Carrie Allsop, you are never the woman no one will ask to dance. I will be here dancing with you for as long as we want to get groovy.

But with you, I felt like I could talk, finally. Talk about anything and everything.

Delights can be hard to come by recently, so I truly cherish getting to laugh with you.

You approach everything with such a purity. How do you do it? How do you keep such a sincere heart in the middle of all this?

Sometimes I think mine might turn to stone any minute now, and yet every time I see you I soften, reminded of how you still choose kindness over anger at every step.

I am trying to be more like you, as best I can. You are a ...

It seems as if you see me exactly as I wish to be seen. There is no greater gift than that.

You deserve a woman who is mad about you. You are brilliant and dedicated. You are a tremendous father. You are tenderhearted. You are the kind of man who finds small joys in hard days. You are both chivalrous and respectful. Men like you are so rare nowadays. You are exceptional. And you absolutely do not deserve this.

Thank you for helping me hold my head a bit higher at a time in which it has every reason to hang low.

Carrie, If I have helped show you just how extraordinary your strength is, then I have paid you back only some small percent. You might just be solely responsible for carrying me through.

I wish I could tell you how often your name comes to the tip of my tongue, how many times a day I find myself thinking of something you said. The other day, someone at work was talking about peanut butter, and I had to stop myself from mentioning that you have converted me to cream cheese on toast forever.

I still can’t believe just how many ways in which you have enlightened my life. You are the second half of my heart nowadays, Carrie Ann. ...

It breaks my heart that no one had been smelling your hair. You are a revelation. And beside you, I could feel nothing but peace. Anyway, about the sandbar. It reminded me of you because you are my sandbar. I was lost at sea, and then you showed up. My dry land. Love, David

Thank you for helping me remember how to be happy. Love, Carrie

Carrie, It is I who should be thanking you. You have reminded me that no matter what happens with my marriage, all is not lost. There is still beauty out there, still unexpected wonders. The only silver lining, should all this end in disaster, is that there is you. Love, David

I kept thinking of you, to be honest. What you have shown me, how much I look forward to seeing you. You have come to mean so much to me.

As they were getting ready to leave, Ken went to pay the bill, and Janet went over to the convenience store next to the hotel and grabbed a drink and a sandwich for the ride home. When she paid, she realized she was a penny short, and so she grabbed one from the “Leave a Penny, Take a Penny” tray. She said it was brand-new, not a scratch on it. It was bright and shiny, exactly the kind I’ve always loved. And as she held the penny in her hand, she realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen me pick one up.

Protect your happiness at all costs.

but I know you, Carrie Ann Allsop. I know your heart. You underestimate your strength. You always have. You have changed me for the rest of my life, and if I had to go through all this, I’m lucky to have gone through it with you. You will be in my heart forever. Take care of yourself. You deserve only the best. All my love, David

But I suppose it has taken me too long in my life to find my courage. And apparently I needed an extra two weeks to summon its full passion.

We were out to dinner at an Italian restaurant when I suddenly couldn’t bear it any longer. He was in the middle of ordering minestrone soup, and I simply said, “I’m leaving you.” And then I threw my napkin onto the table, took the keys out of his jacket pocket, and walked out. I made him walk home.

It brings me pride to tell you that I left that asshole. And it gives me sheer joy to tell you that, last month, I gave birth to a beautiful daughter I named Margaret.

I am a divorcée and a single mother, and I live with my parents at the age of thirty-one. All things I never imagined for myself. But I’m doing all right with all of it, I have to say.

I listen to Joni Mitchell whenever I want. Right now, the trees are starting to bloom again. Maggie just learned how to smile.

Frankly, the past year or so has felt like a number of victories, even though it started out feeling like such a loss. But getting to know you—being with you—was the beginning of me understanding just how lost I was in my own life.

I needed so badly to see that regardless of whether I could carry a child, I was still me, still worth something. And no matter what my husband thought of me, I was still important. And while my mother often reminds me that I should have been able to see that myself, I am so thankful th...