Page 4 of Not You Again
My marriage is over.
My best friend slept with my wife.
A grease-stained paper bag rattled in front of Adam’s face. The typeface across the front—Moms Apple Pie—snapped him out of his haze.
“Let’s take a break,” his dad, Bill, said, and clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder.
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose as Bill led them out of the bedroom and onto the back porch. The fresh air outside the two-bed, one-bath cabin that he and Shireen had been renting for the past few years was just the same as always. Except, as Adam took in a breath, he didn’t feel the usual peace.
No, a deep exhaustion hummed through him. He’d spentmost of the afternoon folding clothes, toiletries and a few personal items—his laptop, chargers, journal—into a hard-shell suitcase. He’d expected Shireen to show up at some point and beg him to stay, but she hadn’t. Instead, his dad had come over with apple fritters.
After Adam oversaw the burial of Bruce Hart, whose daughter had inexplicably vanished—what kind of a person leaves in the middle of their own father’s funeral?—he’d called his mom. Sheila was one of those practical people who always had a solution, and hers was to have Adam come home while he sorted things out. And he’d easily agreed, because he didn’t want to sleep in the house where his wife had decided to have an affair with his best friend.
His dad pulled out a plastic chair and took a seat at the small, round table that overlooked the woods behind the cabin. Adam did the same. Bill pushed the bag across the table and Adam pulled out an apple fritter, coated in a thick layer of flaky sugar that melted into doughy perfection as he took a bite.
The thing was so good, he almost forgot that Shireen had imploded their marriage a few hours earlier. Almost.
Adam swallowed down the dough, which was suddenly a brick in his throat. Shireen had cheated on him. She was sleeping with his best friend. How had he been oblivious to all of it until she was tearfully confessing in his office?
“Your mom is getting your old room ready,” Bill said. “You can stay as long as you like, of course.”
“Thanks.” Adam numbly took another bite of the fritter. He was devastated about Shireen, but also? He was humiliated to be having this conversation with his dad—a man who’d been married for over forty years. Adam imagined both of his parents were embarrassed. His routine life had somehow become a soap opera, and their town was small enough thateveryone would know Adam’s marriage was over (along with the reason) soon enough.
The reason, according to Shireen, was that Adam had taken her for granted. She’d told him that he was “emotionally unavailable.” He’d gotten so wrapped up in making a secure future for them that he’d forgotten to check in on their present. While he’d found the prospect of forever with Shireen a comfort, she’d needed him to focus on the day-to-day.
“Do you want to talk about... anything?” Bill asked.
Adam side-eyed him. Their family didn’t talk about feelings. His parents loved him—said the wordslove youwith regularity. But still, they didn’t have long, deep conversations about the state of their mental health. Their small and mighty unit of three spoke sarcasm fluently. They skimmed past subjects like politics in favor of the weather. The only time he’d ever seen his father cry was the day Adam got married, and those were joyful tears.
So the idea of telling his dad that Shireen had slept with his best friend was, well, not something he was about to do. Before he had to answer, the alarm on his phone pinged.
“Five minutes until the eclipse.”Adam’s mouth twitched at the words. This wasn’t how he’d pictured the day going. The eclipse was something he’d been looking forward to for months. While Adam’s job was a funeral director, he’d always been a bit of an amateur astronomer. And this was going to be one of those moments where Adam could let his astronomy flag fly.He’d packed a picnic and gotten Shireen purple eclipse sunglasses—her favorite color. All morning he’d been excited to wrap up work so they could experience this extraordinary thing together—a chance to reconnect.
But now, instead of rattling off eclipse facts to his wife, Adam and Bill would watch the sun get swallowed by themoon and burn a dark black hole in the sky. And maybe that was fitting. The eclipse could torch through the memory of the day and help him forget the whole damn mess that was his life.
Adam leaned sideways to pull out two pairs of eclipse glasses from his jeans, handing the purple frames to his dad.
“Funky,” Bill said as he slung them on. “I feel like Elton John.”
“I’ll call you Rocket Man from here on out,” Adam replied. They were back to their easy rhythm of sarcasm, right where Adam wanted them to be.
“So, you’re still into that astrology business, huh?” Bill asked.
“Astronomy,” Adam corrected him.
“That’s what I said,” Bill joked. “I didn’t realize you were keeping up with this stuff.”
Adam’s stomach clenched. This astronomystuffhad become a point of contention for his family. As a kid, Adam had loved dreaming of what it would be like to discover something new in the sky above him. But the older he’d gotten, the more his passion was dismissed as a childhood whim. His dad had him working summers at the funeral home to learn the family business: Rhodes Funeral Home. The place was started by Adam’s grandpa, taken over by Bill and had the expectation that Adam would eventually inherit the hearse. So, Adam had put aside his telescope and accepted the future he’d been handed in an ornate silver urn.
His dad wanted to retire and travel through Italy with Adam’s mom—the undertaker wants to be under the Tuscan sun, his dad had joked. Which meant Rhodes Funeral Home would be Adam’s sole responsibility.
And Adam was comfortable with that. He’d found thewoman he was going to spend the rest of his life with. Having a steady job meant that they could save for a house. With any luck, their marriage would be as happy as his own parents’. Only, Shireen had betrayed him.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve been keeping up with astronomy,” Adam lied. Hedidkeep tabs on big scientific news through various Substack newsletters. “But total solar eclipses are rare. Special.”
Adam could’ve told Bill that the moon had to line up perfectly between the earth and sun, and even when that did happen, the eclipse wasn’t usually visible. But those little fun facts might show his hand.
Instead, he tried to focus on the eclipse as the sun turned into a crescent, then a sliver and eventually vanished under the dark shadow of the moon. His dad had commentary, of course.
