“Okay, one night,” I said while nodding slowly and picking up my fork to finish the meal I could no longer taste. Troy looked relieved and told me he knew I would understand because I was always the rational one in the family.
I understood that my husband was ashamed of me and that my sister had betrayed me with a speed that suggested this was not their first secret. I spent the rest of the night washing dishes by hand while Troy laughed at the television in the other room.
I logged into our bank accounts after midnight and stared at the recurring transfers that I had personally programmed for my sister’s benefit. Thousands of dollars had flowed from my labor into her lifestyle while she plotted to steal the narrative of my marriage.
I checked her social media and found a blurry photo of a man’s hand holding a wine glass that featured the exact watch I had bought Troy for our anniversary. I closed my laptop and went to sleep in the guest room without saying another word to the stranger downstairs.
The following evening I came home early and heard them laughing together in the living room before I even crossed the threshold. They were sitting on the couch and Kelsey was wearing one of my favorite cardigans while they rehearsed the details of my own life.
“How did we meet,” Troy asked while Kelsey smiled and repeated the story of a birthday party in the suburbs that had actually belonged to me. They were stealing my memories to make their lie feel authentic to a room full of people.
I stepped into the room and Troy didn’t even have the grace to look startled as he asked if I wanted to help them refine the timeline. “You are using my life story,” I said while standing perfectly still in the doorway.
Kelsey examined her manicure and told me that I didn’t exactly own a meet-cute story as if it were a piece of communal property. They sat there and practiced the details of our rooftop proposal and our first trip to the coast while I watched from the armchair.
