I Took My Wife To A Party. She Left With Another Man Because He’s Rich. He Threw A Dollar Bill On…

Each installation took about 20 minutes, and I did them all with the precision of a surgeon and the motivation of a man who’d finally hit his limit. Noah wandered out around 9:00, still in his pajama pants and looking like death warmed over, which was the natural state of 18-year-old boys on Sunday mornings. He watched me work on the back door for a minute, scratching his stomach and yawning like a bear emerging from hibernation.

“Dad, why are you changing all the locks?”

“Home security upgrade,” I said, not looking up from the screwdriver I was working, making sure only the people who live here can get in.

He was quiet for a second, and I could practically hear the gears turning in his head. Noah is a smart kid, smarter than I was at his age, and he definitely noticed the tension in the house lately.

“Does Mom know about this home security upgrade?”

“She’s about to find out.”

“That’s cold, Dad,” he said it like he was impressed rather than concerned, which told me he’d noticed more than I thought. “Want some help?”

We worked together on the last two doors, Noah holding the hardware in place while I drilled and screwed everything tight. It was nice working alongside my son, not having to explain myself or justify my actions. He understood, or at least understood enough to know that asking questions wasn’t going to help anybody.

When we finished, I handed him the old locks to throw in the garage pile of things I’d eventually take to the scrapyard, and we stood back to admire our handiwork like we’d just built the Sistine Chapel instead of just changing some deadbolts.

“So what happens when she tries to get in?” Noah asked, and there was definitely some anticipation in his voice, like he was looking forward to the drama in the way that kids do when it’s not their mess to clean up.

“We find out if she remembers how to knock,” I said.

By noon I’d tested all the locks approximately 50 times, made sure they were smooth and solid, and distributed the new keys. I kept one set, gave Noah a set with strict instructions to not give them to his mother under any circumstances, and hid a spare set in my workshop inside a coffee can labeled “miscellaneous bolts.” Nobody in their right mind would ever look through my random hardware collection.

The twins were at their friend’s house and Hazel was at a sleepover, which meant they’d miss the fireworks, but I’d fill them in later. Sometimes it’s better when the younger kids aren’t around for the messy parts of divorce. Miranda had left around 10:00 for hot yoga—or at least that’s what she’d announced to the house in general, like she was still keeping up appearances.

She tried to make small talk with me about dinner plans, and I’d responded with the enthusiasm of a tree stump.

“Whatever you want,” I’d said, knowing damn well that dinner plans were about to become the least of her concerns.

The Public Resignation

At 6:30 on the dot, I heard her BMW pull into the driveway. I was sitting in the living room with a beer and a book I wasn’t actually reading, just using as a prop so I’d look casual and unbothered when the s**t inevitably hit the fan. Noah was upstairs in his room with his door cracked open, definitely listening, probably recording audio for posterity or blackmail purposes.

I heard her footsteps on the porch, heard her keys jingle, heard that familiar sound of her trying to insert her key into a lock that no longer recognized her authority. Silence. Then another attempt, harder this time, like maybe she’d just used the wrong key.

More silence, then the sound of her trying different keys, probably cycling through her entire keychain like maybe she’d forgotten which key opened her own front door.

“Darren!” she yelled through the door, and I let her yell my name three more times before I casually walked over and opened it.

She was standing there in her yoga pants and overpriced athletic top, holding her keys like they’d personally betrayed her, her face somewhere between confusion and fury.

“The key isn’t working,” she said, stating the obvious like I might not have noticed.

“Yeah,” I said, leaning against the doorframe in a way that I hoped looked cool and unbothered. “Neither is our marriage.”

Her jaw dropped, literally dropped like a cartoon character who’d just been hit with an anvil.

“What, Darren? That’s not—we need to talk about this. Let me in so we can have an adult conversation.”

“Adult conversation?” I repeated, tasting the words. “That’s rich coming from someone who spent Friday night in a hotel room and came home wearing another man’s jacket. That’s real mature behavior, Miranda. Very adult.”

“That’s not what happened. You’re twisting everything!”

Her voice was climbing in pitch, getting that shrieky quality that meant she was losing control of the narrative.

“I told you, we just went to talk to Gavin—”

“The guy who thinks I’m worth a dollar?” I interrupted, feeling calmer than I had in days. “The guy whose initials were on the jacket you wore home? The guy who left his signature on your neck? I’m sure he’d love to have an adult conversation with you.”

She tried the door handle, actually tried to push past me like this was still her house, like she still had rights here. I didn’t move, didn’t budge an inch, just stood there being an immovable object to her unstoppable audacity.

“Darren, this is my house too! You can’t just lock me out!”

“Actually,” I said, “I can, and I did. Maybe crash on Gavin’s couch tonight. I hear you’re familiar with his furniture.”

That’s when the neighbors started appearing. Old Mrs. Henderson from next door suddenly needed to water her plants, despite the fact that it was December and everything was dead. The Johnsons across the street discovered an urgent need to check their mailbox for the third time that day.

Even Mr. Park, who usually minded his own business like a professional, was suddenly very interested in inspecting his gutters in the fading evening light. They weren’t even being subtle about it, just standing in their yards pretending to do tasks while obviously listening to my wife have a meltdown on our front porch. Miranda noticed the audience and lowered her voice, trying to salvage some dignity.

“You’re being unreasonable. We need to talk about communication.”

“About communication?” I said, loud enough for the neighbors to hear because, at this point, I didn’t give a single damn about privacy. “Communication ended when you turned our marriage into a group project, Miranda. When you added a third person without my consent. That’s not a marriage; that’s a committee, and I’m resigning.”

Her face went red, then white, then some color in between that I didn’t have a name for. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again like a fish that had just realized it was out of water. Finally, she grabbed her phone from her yoga bag and stormed back to her car, and I watched her peel out of the driveway with the kind of acceleration that definitely violated several traffic laws.

I waved to the neighbors, who quickly went back to their fake tasks, and went inside to finish my beer. It tasted like victory. The house felt different after Miranda left, like someone had finally opened a window in a room that had been suffocating for months.

I sat on the couch with my beer getting warm in my hand, listening to the silence and realizing I didn’t miss her voice filling it. That’s probably the saddest realization a married man can have—that peace sounds better than his wife’s presence. The beer tasted like freedom with a slight aftertaste of impending legal bills, but I’d take it.

Noah came downstairs about an hour later, after the neighbors had gone inside and the street had returned to its normal suburban quiet. He had that look on his face, the one kids get when they’re trying to decide if they should say something or just let sleeping dogs lie. He grabbed a Coke from the fridge, sat down in the recliner that used to be his grandfather’s, and just looked at me for a solid 30 seconds like he was scanning me for damage.