He used to say that his wife no longer understood him. Yes, I know. Men in stories like this almost always say the same thing. But when you are twenty-six, and a handsome grown man is sitting across from you, smelling of expensive cologne, looking straight into your eyes and saying quietly, “You’re the only person I can be myself with,” you do not remember other people’s warnings.
You do not think, “They all say that.”
You think something else entirely.
I’m different.
He chose me.
His name was Daniel. He was forty-one, the head of a department at a major construction company. Tall and self-assured, with silver beginning to show at his temples—the kind of gray that somehow makes a man look more attractive instead of older.
He had broad, strong hands and a deep, steady voice.
Whenever Daniel began telling a story, I wanted to close my eyes and simply listen. It didn’t matter whether he was talking about travel, work, or reinforced concrete structures.
We met at a professional conference.
I had been working as a junior analyst for only three months. I was wearing a new pair of shoes that rubbed my feet terribly, and I was terrified that everyone would notice how inexperienced I was.
Daniel was speaking to the room.
An expensive suit.
A confident delivery.
Easy jokes.
Afterward, he came over to me himself.
“Would you like to get some coffee?”
Of course I said yes.
During that first coffee, he talked about his projects, his plans, and his work. I listened, smiled, and asked questions.
During the second break, he suddenly fell silent. He looked at me and said:
“I’m married. I’d rather tell you right away.”
And I, a naive twenty-six-year-old woman, even saw that as something admirable.
Honesty.
Decency.
I thought that if he was not hiding the fact that he had a wife, then he must respect me.
“Things between my wife and me have been difficult for a long time,” he continued. “On paper, we’re married. In real life, we’re practically strangers. We live under the same roof only because of the children.”
He had two children.
A son and a daughter.
Daniel quickly showed me a picture on his phone. A fair-haired boy and a little girl.
I barely looked at their faces.
Perhaps because I did not want to remember them.
“I’m not asking you for anything,” he said. “I just like you very much.”
“You like me too,” I replied.
That was how it began.
Three years is a very long time.
It is no longer a brief affair.
Not a mistake that happened once.
Not something you can excuse by saying, “We slipped up.”
In three years, a person can become part of your entire life.
Tuesdays and Thursdays belonged to us.
Daniel usually arrived after work at around seven.
I cooked dinner.
I tried to make something special.
We sat in the kitchen and talked. He told me about his job, his colleagues, and the problems he was dealing with. I listened.
Later, we would be alone together.
Usually until ten.
Sometimes until eleven.
Then he would glance at the clock.
“I have to go. My wife will start calling soon.”
His wife.
That was how he referred to her.
Never by her name.
In three years, I never once heard him say her name.
Only “my wife.”
As if a person without a name stopped being real.
As if she became merely a circumstance.
A background figure.
An inconvenient part of his life.
I never asked.
It was easier that way.
As long as she remained simply “his wife,” without a face, a name, or a personality, I did not have to think of her as a living woman.
I did not have to feel guilty.
I did not have to ask myself uncomfortable questions.
I could continue believing that I was special.
Because that was what Daniel told me over and over again.
Every Tuesday.
Every Thursday.
“With her, it’s habit.
“Responsibility.
“The children.
“Household matters.
“But with you, I feel alive.”
“You’re the only person I can be myself with,” he would say. “At home, I’m always supposed to be a husband, a father, the man responsible for everything. Here, I’m just me.”
I believed him.
For three years.
I waited for two evenings a week.
I fell asleep alone.
I woke up alone.
Only between those lonely days were there a few hours when he lay beside me—large, warm, and carrying the scent of that same expensive cologne.
I tried not to think about his wife.
I made a conscious effort not to.
But every so often, reality found a way through.
Sometimes he called her while he was with me.
The conversations were brief.
“Yes, I’ll be late. A meeting. No, not too late. Love you.”
Love you.
That phrase always caught inside me.
He said it to his wife.
And a minute later, he kissed me.
The same lips.
The same words.
Two women.
I wanted to believe that one kiss was merely habit, while the other was real.
Naturally, I believed mine was the real one.
One evening Daniel went to take a shower and left his phone on the bedside table.
The screen lit up.
I had not been planning to read anything.
But the message appeared directly in front of me:
“Don’t forget the milk and bread. Love you.”