SHE SHARED EVERYTHING ABOUT HER MARRIAGE UNTIL…

Zena Bellow was the kind of newly married woman who would tell you about her husband’s snoring pattern before you even sat down.

She couldn’t help it. Marriage had done something terrible to her brain. It had replaced every previous thought with Taju.

Taju said this. Taju did that. Tajju’s smile. Taju’s cologne. Taju’s annoying habit of leaving his socks beside the laundry basket instead of inside it, which she somehow found adorable.

Her mother had warned her. Zena, calm down. You are behaving like someone who just discovered electricity.

But Zena didn’t want to calm down. She had waited 29 years for this man.

Survived three terrible relationships and she deserved to be loud about her happiness. The wedding was in April.

Big, noisy, full of aunties who cried even before the bride walked in. Taju stood at the altar looking like God had personally carved him for Zena’s eyes only.

Tall, dark, with a jaw that could cut glass and eyes that crinkled at the corners when he laughed.

He worked in logistics, a serious, responsible man who paid his own rent, filed his taxes, and called his mother every Sunday.

Zena had introduced him to Rita 2 years before the wedding. And Rita had hugged her and screamed, “God answered this one properly.”

Rita Es her best friend since secondary school. The kind of friendship built on shared secrets, borrowed money that was never returned, and surviving the same wicked JS2 mathematics teacher together.

They had been through everything. Breakups, job losses, that one terrible trip to Obudu where they both got food poisoning and shared one toilet for 6 hours.

If that didn’t seal a friendship, nothing would. So, naturally, when Zena’s marriage began, Rita was the first person she called.

Every day, sometimes twice. Rita, he made breakfast. This morning he made agaja blood toast with egg.

I’m crying. Rita would laugh. Zena, calm down. It’s just toast. It’s not just toast, Rita.

It’s love made edible. What Zena didn’t know, what she couldn’t have seen from inside her cloud of honeymoon happiness was that on the other end of that phone call, Rita was sitting in her one-bedroom flat, staring at the ceiling, holding a mug of tea that had gone cold 30 minutes ago.

Rita was 31, single, recently dumped by a man named Bodong, who had left her for a girl 10 years younger, with the explanation delivered casually as if commenting on weather that he needed someone with more energy.

Rita had smiled, wished him well, closed the door behind him, and then sat on her kitchen floor for 45 minutes, eating crackers and questioning every decision she had ever made.

She had told Rita about the breakup, of course, and Zena had been wonderful about it.

She drove to Rita’s house that same night with ice cream, wine, and a full speech about how Bjodon was a fool and a mediocre human being.

But after Zena left that night, something had shifted quietly inside Rita. Something small and ugly that she didn’t fully acknowledge even to herself.

It was the way Zena had hugged her at the door, said call me anytime, and then checked her phone twice on the way out.

Taju had texted. Zena smiled at the screen, a private, helpless smile. And Rita had seen it.

That smile, that stupid smile, the smile of a woman whose life was four. Rita locked her door, finished the remaining wine alone, and told herself she was fine.

She was not fine. By the third month of marriage, Zena had essentially appointed Rita as the unofficial minister of her personal life.

Rita knew everything. She knew that Taju’s mother had visited twice and both times had rearranged Dena’s kitchen without asking.

She knew that Taju and Zena had their first proper argument on a Tuesday night over whether to keep watching a Netflix series Zena loved and Taju found boring.

She knew that Taju sometimes worked late and that Zena had started saving his leftovers in a small container labelled with a little heart which she photographed and sent to Rita.

You labeled his food with a heart? Rita had said I did. Is that too much?

Zena, you need a hobby. But Rita kept asking every detail, every story, every small domestic drama.

Rita was there listening, asking follow-up questions with the precision of a journalist. Wait, what exactly did his mother say when she moved your pots?

She said the arrangement wasn’t conducive, whatever that means. And Tadu didn’t say anything. He said his mother means well.

Hm. [clears throat] A long pause. So he took her side. He didn’t take sides.

He didn’t defend you. Zena frowned. She hadn’t thought of it that way. I mean, he said it wasn’t a big deal.

Exactly. To him, it’s not a big deal, but you’re the one living in that house.

Zena spent the next 20 minutes feeling a lowgrade irritation toward Taju that she hadn’t felt before the phone call.

This was Rita’s gift. She didn’t shout. She didn’t say your husband is bad. She simply asked the right questions, paused at the right moment, and let the poison drip slowly into the well.

Rita told herself she was just being honest, helping her friends see clearly. What are friends for if not truthtelling.

But the truth Rita was telling was always the darkest version of every story, the most suspicious interpretation of every event, the most alarming reading of every silence.

She didn’t lie, she just tilted. Rita increased her visit after month four. Every Saturday, she would arrive at Zena and Taju’s flat in Lakey with something.

A pot of soup she had made too much of, a small gift for the house, a new drama series she thought they should all watch together.

She was charming, warm. She laughed at Tajju’s jokes, asked him about work, and never, not once, gave the slightest sign of anything other than genuine friendship.

Taju liked her. He told Zena once, “Your friend is good people.” Zena had beamed, “I told you.”

What Taju didn’t notice, because men rarely notice these things until it’s too late, was that Rita observed him like a scientist observes a specimen.

She cataloged his moods. She noticed when he was tired. She filed away information about his preferences, his complaints, his opinions.

She was building a profile. One Saturday evening, Taju mentioned offhand that he found Zena’s habit of narrating TV shows while watching them slightly maddening.

She literally describes what’s happening on screen while it’s happening. He said, “I can see the screen, babe.”

Zena laughed too. It was a gentle married couple kind of joke, but Rita stored it.

The next week, when Zena called to say she and Taju had a small disagreement about something unrelated, Rita steered the conversation carefully.

You know, Taiu once said something to me when you went to the bathroom last Saturday.

Zena stiffened. What did he say? Nothing serious. He just said, “He sometimes feels like you don’t give him space to breathe.”

Silence. He said that. I mean, not in those exact words, but that’s the impression I got.

Don’t read too much into it. Which was of course exactly what Zena did. The problem with planting seeds of doubt is that they are excellent at growing without any further watering.

Zena, who had been floating in newly wed happiness, started looking at her marriage through slightly different eyes.

When Taju came home late, she now wondered if it was more than just work.

When he was quiet over dinner, she wondered if he was unhappy. When he didn’t laugh at her joke, she wondered if she was becoming irritating.

She called Rita to process all of it, and Rita masterfully processed it with her.

“Do you think he’s bored?” Zena asked one evening. “I don’t know. Is he communicating less?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure. How’s your intimacy? I’m asking as your friend. Zena sighed and told her everything, the details of her marriage like items on an invoice handed over freely to someone she trusted with her eyes closed.

Rita listened carefully. She also around the same time found Taju on Instagram. She told herself it was innocent.

She followed him. He followed back. He knew her. She was Zena’s best friend. Why wouldn’t he?

Then she started liking his posts. Then commenting small things. Haha, this guy or where is this?

When he posted a photo from a work trip, Taju, who was not an intuitive man when it came to social warfare, responded normally, as one does with a friend’s friend.

He had no idea he was being recruited. Everything nearly unraveled in the fifth month during what Zena would later refer to only as the Agusi situation.

Taju’s mother, Mrs. Bellow, a woman built like a retired general and with an equally strong personality, came to visit for a week.

She had opinions about everything. The curtains were too light. The furniture arrangement was wrong.

Zena’s cooking was acceptable but could improve. Zena survived all of this with considerable grace and only two secret crying sessions in the bathroom.

But then Mrs. Bellow made a goosey soup and Taju ate three plates. Three plates.

Zena, who had spent 45 minutes that previous Sunday making her own egusi soup, had watched her husband eat three plates of his mother’s version with an enthusiasm she had never personally witnessed.

It’s the bitter leaf, Serena said, handing Tadu a fourth plate. You have to know how to balance it.

Zena smiled. I twitched slightly. She called Rita the moment Mrs. Bellow went to take her afternoon nap.

Three plates, Rita. Three. Rita made a sound of deep sympathy. Wow. He made sounds while eating sounds.

He has never made sounds eating my food. To be fair, maybe she’s just had more practice.

But she told me I don’t know how to balance bitter leaf. Okay, that’s rude.

Thank you. But also, Taju should have said something. He just sat there and let her say that.

He laughed. He laughed. Rita H. That pause again. That calculated weaponized pause. Zena, I’m going to say something and I need you not to be upset.

Zena braced herself. Say it. Some men, especially the ones with very involved mothers. They never fully leave home.

Not emotionally. You’ll always be competing with that woman in that house. I’ve seen it happen.

Zena went quiet. I’m not saying that’s your situation. I’m just saying watch him. Zena watched him for the entire rest of the week.

She watched Taju with the eyes of a woman who had been told there was something to see.

And because she was looking, she found things or thought she did. The way he deferred to his mother, the way he laughed at her jokes more easily.

The way he seemed more relaxed when she was in the house. By the time Mrs. Bellow left, Zena and Taju had two arguments, both of which seemed to materialize from thin air.

Mrs. Bellow, for her part, left convinced that Zena was a good girl, but complicated.

Rita, when she heard all of this, said, “See, I told you mother son bond.

It’s deep. It happened by accident. Or at least that’s what made it worse.

Zena was using Taju’s phone has her died and she needed to check directions when she saw the name Rita Ez.

Her finger froze. Her heart did something irregular. The kind of things hearts do when they already know what they’re about to find, but the brain is still negotiating.

She opened it. The conversation was long, very long, weeks of back and forth she had not known existed.

The messages started normally enough. Rita asking about Taju’s work trip. Him responding politely. Then they got warmer, more personal.

Rita sharing memes. Taju laughing. Rita saying things like, “You seem stressed lately. Hope Zena isn’t overloading you with wedding anniversaries and heartlabeled food containers with a laughing emoji.”

Taju had laughed. He had replied, “She means well. She just shares a lot.” Arita has said, “I know.

She literally tells me everything. Don’t worry. I keep it between us.” Zena stood in the kitchen with the phone in her hand and felt the world tilt sideways.

She keeps it between us, meaning Rita had been discussing what Zena told her in confidence with Taju.

Meaning Taju knew things, private things that Zena had only told Rita. Meaning the woman she had cried to about her marriage was simultaneously holding private conversations with the man she was married to.

Zena put the phone down carefully. She didn’t throw it. Later, she would consider this an act of extraordinary self-control deserving of a national award.

She sat on the kitchen floor, which was apparently the designated Nigerian woman in crisis spot, and took three very slow breaths.

Then she picked up the phone and kept reading. The messages went back 4 months.

Rita had been careful. Nothing overtly flirtatious, nothing that could be presented to a judge as evidence of anything criminal, but it was there a warmth, a familiarity, a particular way of talking to a married man that wasn’t quite right.

Inside jokes about Zena, gentle, seemingly affectionate jokes, but jokes nonetheless. There was one message that stopped Zena completely.

Rita had written, “She said you didn’t defend her when your mom rearranged the kitchen.

I told her she was overthinking it, but honestly, you should pay attention to her more.

She really loves you. Taju had replied, “I know. Thanks for looking out, Rita. Looking out for Zena by talking to her husband about her.”

The audacity was so staggering, so breathtaking in its scope that for a full 2 minutes, Zena could not produce a single emotion.

She was beyond emotion. She was in the place past emotion where everything just goes very, very quiet and clear.

She stood up from the floor. She went to the bedroom. She sat on the bed and waited for Taju to come into the room.

Taju walked in humming his song. He was in a good mood. He had closed a deal at work.

He saw Zena sitting on the bed. He knew immediately that something had happened. Married men developed this survival instinct within the first year.

The way she was sitting very straight, very still, very calm, was the most dangerous possible configuration.

“Hey babe,” he said carefully. “You okay? Sit down.” He sat. She handed him his phone.

The messages were open. Taju looked at the screen, looked at Zena. He opened his mouth.

Don’t, she said. He closed his mouth. How long, Zena? How long has she been messaging you?

He exhaled. Since around, I think March. March? Zena nodded slowly. That’s 4 months. 4 months of my best friend talking to my husband privately.

And you didn’t think to tell me. It wasn’t anything. I know it wasn’t anything.

Her voice was frighteningly calm. That’s not actually my biggest problem right now. My biggest problem is that the woman I was crying to about our marriage, my marriage was sitting on information about this.

She gestured between them like a chess player and you let her. You responded, you laughed, you told her I share a lot.

Taju had the grace to look genuinely ashamed. Taju, she told me things you supposedly said.

She told me you said you don’t give me space to breathe. His brow furrowed.

I never said that. I know that now. Silence fell between them like a dropped plate.

Taju put his head in his hands. Zena, I’m sorry. I should have told you she was messaging me.

It just seemed harmless. She’s your friend. She was asking about me. I didn’t want to make it weird.

It became weird. Anyway, yes, she used what I told her about us to talk to you about us.

I didn’t know that’s what she was doing. Neither did I. Zena laughed then. A short sad laugh that was nothing like her real laugh.

That’s the thing. Neither of us knew what she was doing. She was very careful.

They sat in silence for a long time. I labeled your food with their heart, Zena said finally in a small voice.

She laughed at me to you about it. She told you I labeled your food, Taju looked up, and the expression on his face, something soft and broken and sorry, cracked through Zena’s carefully assembled calm.

I thought that was adorable, he said quietly. I never thought it was ridiculous. Zena pressed her lips together.

Okay, I need you to leave me alone for a bit. Za, not forever, just tonight.

Go sleep in the guest room. He went. While Zena was processing her marriage, Rita was at home having a perfectly lovely evening.

She had made fried plantain. She was watching a reality show. Her phone showed a green dot next to Taju’s name on Instagram.

She sent him a meme. She waited. He didn’t respond. She sent another one, a funny video this time.

Still nothing. She shrugged and went back to her plantain. At 10 p.m., her phone rang.

Unknown number. She almost didn’t pick it. Hello, Zena. Zena’s voice. Not her regular one.

The other one. Rita sat up straight. Her plantain fork stopped midway to her mouth.

Zena, you okay? I saw the messages. The plantain fork made contact with the floor.

What messages? Rita said, which was possibly the worst thing she could have said. Rita, I saw the messages between you and my husband.

A silence so thick it had texture. Zena, don’t. The word came out quiet and terrible.

Don’t do that thing where you explain it into nothing. I read everything. I read it all.

It wasn’t We were just talking. You told me I shared too much. Zena’s voice broke slightly on that sentence and then repaired itself.

You took everything I told you about my marriage and you used it to build a relationship with my husband.

You told me things he said that he never said. You made me suspicious of a man who was labeling my food with hearts.

That’s not I was trying to help. Help who? Rita. Silence. Help who? Because you weren’t helping me.

You were gathering intelligence. You were sitting at my table, eating my food, listening to my problems, and measuring.

Zena’s voice was shaking now, not with tears, with something older and harder. You were measuring my happiness against yours, and you couldn’t stand it.

That’s not true. But Rita’s voice had gone wrong. The worst part, Zena said, is that I was your friend, a real one.

I would have helped you. If you had told me you were struggling, that you were hurting, that watching my marriage was painful for you.

I would have pulled back. I would have been more careful because I loved you.

Loved. Past tense. Vita heard it. Zena, don’t call me. Don’t come to my house.

And if you contact my husband again, I will become a version of myself that neither of us will enjoy.

The line went dead. Vita sat in her flat with a fork in her hand and cold plantain on the floor and something hollowing out of her chest.

She had not expected Zena to find out. She had been so careful. She had told herself for months that she was just being a good friend, staying connected, keeping an eye on things, making sure.

But making sure of what? That Zena’s marriage was happy or that it wasn’t happier than Rita’s emptiness.

She didn’t fully answer that question now. It was too honest. She picked up her fork.

She set it down. She looked at the cold plantain on the floor. Then, because she was human and in pain and had absolutely no one to call, she put her head in her hands and cried.

But unlike Zena, Rita had no one to cry to. That was the difference. That had always been the difference.

Word got out. Of course it did. This is Nigeria. Privacy is a concept that exists primarily in theory.

Zena’s cousin, Adazi, who was connected to everyone, everywhere at all times, like a human Wi-Fi router, somehow heard a version of events within 48 hours.

Her version involved Retita practically moving into Zena’s husband’s DMs, which was a slight exaggeration, but the emotional call was correct.

Adi called Zena’s mother. Zena’s mother called Zena’s aunt Goi. They arrived at Zena’s house on a Saturday morning.

Mama Zena, Antiongi, and Ad who had invited herself bearing jolof rice, chinchin, and extremely strong opinions.

Taju, who recognized immediately what was happening, developed an urgent need to visit a hardware store and left with suspicious speed.

Zena sat across from the three women and felt like she was in court. “Tell us everything,” Anti said, settling into the sofa like a judge taking the bench.

Zena told them by the end the temperature in the room had risen significantly without any change in the weather.

This Rita Antonguzi said I always said there was something about her eyes too quiet.

You know how some people are loud and you can track them. This one is quiet.

Those are the dangerous ones. Mama Zena who was more measured sighed deeply. Zena, I told you.

I told you not to carry your marriage on your head like a banner. When you are too loud about your happiness, some people will come and locate it.

So, it’s my fault, Zena said slightly sharply. No, my love. What Rita did is her fault entirely.

But Mama Zena reached over and held her daughter’s hand. You have to learn that your marriage is a room.

Not everyone you love should have the keys. Adise, who had been quiet for an unusual 3 minutes, finally erupted.

What I cannot forgive is the pretending. She was coming here every Saturday, eating your food, carrying soup, smiling.

I’m sorry, but that is a demon in a human suit, and I will not hear otherwise.

A daisy, Mama Zena said wearily. No, auntie, I will not calm down. She sat at this woman’s table and smiled in her face and then went home and typed to her husband in the same hands that were carrying soup.

Those hands need to be examined by a pastor. Zena, despite everything, started laughing. And once she started, she couldn’t stop.

And then she was crying and laughing at the same time, which made Adi start crying in sympathy, which made Antong Goi fan herself dramatically and say, “See what this girl has caused.

See what one betrayer has caused in this family. That night, after everyone had left, Zena and Taju sat at their kitchen table.

The takeaway bag from two nights ago was still on the counter, untouched. They had both forgotten about it.

“Talk to me,” Taju said. Zena looked at her husband, really looked at him, not with the suspicious, worried eyes she had been wearing for the past months, but with her original eyes, the ones she had before Rita had started tilting things.

I’m angry at her, Zena said. But I’m also angry at myself. Why? Because I gave her too much.

I turned her into a confessional. Every fight we had, every small thing, I ran straight to her.

I thought that’s what friendship was. But I was actually handing someone a manual to our marriage.

Taju was quiet and I made you into a problem. Zena continued without knowing it.

I was always narrating you through her filter and her filter was cracked. I should have told you she was messaging me.

Yes, you should have. I thought it would cause drama. It caused more drama by not telling me.

She looked at him steadily. Taju, if a woman, any woman, is regularly in your DMs, I need to know.

Not because I don’t trust you, but because I deserve the chance to protect myself.

You took that chance away. He nodded. You’re right. I’m sorry. They sat with the apology for a moment, letting it settle.

“Did you actually find her funny?” Zena asked suddenly. “Her memes?” Taju looked at her, then he looked away.

Then slowly, he started to smile. Some of them were, “She has decent taste in memes.”

Taju, I’m being honest. My god, you told me to be honest in this marriage.

Not about that. The memes were funny, Zena. The memes. That’s all. Zena buried her face in her hands.

I cannot believe I’m sitting here and my husband is defending his secret meme body.

Taji started laughing. And then Zena started laughing. Not the broken laughing crying from earlier, but the real kind.

Their kind. The kind they did when something was too absurd to be anything other than funny.

Eventually, Zena rested her head on the table. I miss her, she said quietly. I hate that I miss her, but I do.

Taju put his hand on her back. I know. 13 years, Taju. We shared everything.

I know. How do you grieve a friendship? He didn’t have an answer for that.

He just kept his hand on her back while she let herself feel it. The loss of it, the specific sadness of a betrayal that comes where in the face of love.

3 weeks after Zena’s call, Rita went to see her own mother. Her mother was a small sharp woman named Mamarita who had been widowed at 50 and had since developed the survival skills of a woman who needed no one which she had unfortunately by example also taught Rita.

Rita sat in her mother’s living room and told her what had happened. Everything honestly.

Her mother listened without interrupting which was unusual. When Rita finished her mother was quiet for a long moment.

You went after your friend’s husband. She said I didn’t go after him. You built a secret relationship with a married man who belonged to your best friend.

It wasn’t like Rita stopped breathed. It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t trying to take him.

I wasn’t even attracted to him like that. I just I wanted to feel connected.

I wanted to feel like I was inside something that mattered. You wanted to feel like you mattered, her mother said softly.

Rita looked at her hands. And then Zena was right there so happy, so full.

And every time she called you, it was like looking through a window at a house you wanted to live in.

Silence. Yes, Rita said finally. It came out like something she’d been holding for a long time.

Yes, that’s exactly what it was. So instead of closing the blinds and dealing with your own pain, you started making the house look less warm from the inside.

Rita closed her eyes. Rita, her mother’s voice said, not unkind, but it was also not gentle.

Heartbreak doesn’t give you permission to poison someone else’s peace. You were hurting. I understand that.

But Zena trusted you and you took that trust and you played with it. I didn’t think of it that way when I was doing it.

That’s what makes it worse. Her mother side. When we do small evil with big excuses, we lose ourselves slowly.

You told yourself you were helping. You told yourself you were just talking to him.

You told yourself it was harmless. It was harmless. Was it? Long silence. It made her suspicious of a good man, Rita said in a small voice.

I put things in her head that weren’t there. I I tilted things. Yes. Rita pressed her fingers against her eyes.

I didn’t plan it. I didn’t sit down and think, “Let me destroy Zena’s marriage.”

It just happened gradually. Each small thing seemed fine until it wasn’t. That’s how most damage happens.

Not in explosions, in small tilts. Rita cried then. Not a performative crying of someone wanting sympathy.

The ugly kind. The kind that meant she was finally looking at herself directly. Her mother handed her a handkerchief.

Now, what are you going to do about your actual life? Because attacking a married woman’s peace is a symptom of something that has nothing to do with her.

6 months after the discovery, Zena was in her kitchen on a Sunday morning. She was making breakfast.

Taju was still in bed doing that thing where he was technically awake, but also technically not, which Zena had learned to translate as, “Please.”

She made a toast with egg. She made his the way he liked. The yolk slightly runny, the bread lightly buttered.

She put it on a plate. She stood there for a moment. Then she opened the drawer, took out a marker, and found a small sticky note.

She wrote a heart on it. She stuck it to his plate. She stood back and looked at it.

Then she laughed, a real laugh, warm and private, with nobody watching. Not because a heartlabeled plate was a profound act, but because she had almost stopped doing it.

She had almost let shame planted by someone else wither the small tender habits of her love.

Not today. Taju came into the kitchen 10 minutes later, hair disheveled, wearing a questionable t-shirt, and stopped when he saw the plate.

He picked up the sticky note. He looked at her. I thought you stopped doing this, he said.

I took a break. He put the sticky note very carefully into his pocket like it was a receipt from somewhere important.

Zena watched him. Taju, sit down. Your toast is getting cold. She sat down. Can I say something?

He said sitting across from her. Say it. That woman Rita. She almost convinced me slowly and without me noticing that you were a little too much, too chatty, too attached.

He paused. But the thing is, I married you knowing you talk too much and label food and narrate TV shows.

I didn’t marry you despite those things. I married you because of the person who does those things, a person who loves loudly, and she almost made me embarrassed by that love.

Zena looked at her husband across the table. The morning night was coming through the window.

The toast was warm. The house was quiet and full. She was measuring my happiness, Zena said softly.

Let her measure, Taju said. We’ll just keep making more. Zena and Taju are fine.

Better than fine, actually. They have a rule now. What happens in the marriage stays in the marriage, except for things that need professional mediation or genuine outside wisdom.

They are expecting their first child. Retita started therapy 6 months after the baby shower.

Real therapy, not the kind where you vent for an hour and leave feeling validated, but the uncomfortable kind where someone asks you questions you don’t want to answer.

She is slowly learning the difference between connection and infiltration, between caring and comparing. She has not contacted Zena.

Zena has not contacted her. Some distances once created do not close, but they have stopped being angry distances.

They are simply sad ones. Aunting Goazi told this story at two subsequent family gatherings as a cautionary tale, each time with additional dramatic embellishment.

By the third telling, Rita had apparently tried to move into the house and Taju had barely escaped.

Nobody corrected her. It had become a legend. Adise sent Zena a five paragraph WhatsApp message when she heard about the pregnancy referencing the demon in human suit and declaring it exercised.

She then sent a voice note of herself singing a praise song which Zena played on speaker while Taju covered his ears.

Mrs. Bellow Taju’s mona came to visit again and once again rearranged the kitchen. This time Zena rearranged it back while Mrs.

Bellow watched. They made eye contact. Mrs. Bellow made a sound that might have been a laugh.

Zena made tea. It was by all accounts a beginning. Some people ask about your marriage to compare, not care.

They sit in your joy like visitors touring a house they want to buy, knotting the cracks in the ceiling, measuring the rooms, wondering if they could do better.

They are not always evil. Sometimes they are simply broken people who don’t know how to heal themselves.

And so they reach quietly towards someone else’s light. But a broken bulb cannot light your room no matter how warmly you invite it in.

Be careful who carries the story of your love. Be careful who you give the map of your heart to because not everyone who asks for directions plans to help you get home.

Zena learned this the hard way, but she learned it. If you are currently texting your best friend’s husband’s WhatsApp, stop.

Just stop. Find your own happiness. And for the love of God, get off his Instagram.