Deeper Than an Affair

The kimchi fridge hummed in the corner like it always did, a low steady drone that had been the soundtrack to every late night I'd spent in that kitchen, and I stood at the counter with a knife in my hand, slicing radish into paper-thin discs, and I could hear my husband laughing in the living room.

That laugh. Julian's laugh. Loud and easy and completely without weight. He was telling the story again, the one about the fishing trip where he'd fallen into the river, and Nathaniel was making the sounds a person makes when they're listening, those small grunts and murmurs that don't commit to anything.

I'd been married to Julian for six years. I knew the difference between his real laugh and his performing laugh. This one was real. He was happy. He was always happy when Nathaniel came over.

The knife slipped and I nicked my thumb. Not deep. Just enough to sting.

"You okay in there?" Julian called out.

"Fine," I said. "Just clumsy."

I ran my thumb under cold water and watched the thin ribbon of blood swirl down the drain. Through the wall, I could hear Nathaniel say something I couldn't make out, and Julian laughed again, that big open sound, and I thought about how my husband had never once in six years asked me if I was okay in a way that meant he actually wanted to know the answer.

That's not fair, I told myself. He's a good man.

He was. That was the worst part.

I dried my hands and went back to the radish. The blade moved through the flesh like it was nothing, like the vegetable had been waiting its whole life to fall apart under my fingers. I arranged the slices in a spiral on the plate, the way I'd learned in a cooking class I'd taken three years ago because Julian had said he wanted more home-cooked meals, and then he'd eaten maybe four of them before he started coming home late again, smelling like soju and fried chicken and other people's cigarettes.

The doorbell rang. I heard Julian's chair scrape back, his footsteps heavy and eager, and then their voices overlapping in that way men's voices do when they haven't seen each other in a while, even though it had only been two weeks.

"부장님! Come in, come in. You didn't have to bring anything."

"Just some fruit. For the house."

"For the house," Julian repeated, like it was a joke, like Nathaniel had said something funny. "You hear that, Sojung? He brought fruit for the house."

I wiped my hands on my apron and stepped into the living room.

And there he was.

Nathaniel stood in my doorway with a box of Asian pears in his hands, wearing a gray sweater I'd never seen before, something soft-looking and probably expensive, and he was looking at me the way he always looked at me, which was to say not quite directly, his gaze landing somewhere near my shoulder and then sliding away.

"부장님," I said, and bowed, because that's what you do, because he was my husband's boss and my former boss and a man who had known me since I was twenty-two years old and had no idea what to do with my life.

"Sojung," he said. Just my name. He always said it like that, like it was the whole sentence.

Julian took the pears and disappeared into the kitchen, talking the whole way about how he'd been craving Asian pears lately, how you couldn't find good ones anymore, how the ones at the market were always mealy. And then it was just the two of us standing in my living room, three feet of hardwood floor between us, and I couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"You look well," he said.

"Thank you. You too."

"I'm not," he said. "But thank you."

I laughed. I didn't mean to. It just came out, this small surprised sound, and his face changed when he heard it, something softening around his eyes, and I looked away because I didn't know what to do with that either.

"Sit down, 부장님," I said. "I'll bring out the food."

The table was already set. I'd been working on it since noon, the kind of meal you make when you're trying to say thank you and don't have the words, when you're trying to fill a space with food because the silence would be unbearable otherwise. Braised short ribs. Japchae. Three kinds of namul. The radish I'd just sliced. A whole fish, steamed with ginger and scallion, its eye cloudy and accusing.

Julian had done something stupid at work. That's why Nathaniel was here. My husband, who had never in his life thought through a consequence, had forwarded a document to the wrong client, a document with numbers that weren't supposed to exist, and the whole thing had spiraled into something that could have cost him his job, could have cost him more than that, and Nathaniel had fixed it.

Nathaniel had fixed it because that's what Nathaniel did. He fixed things. He'd been fixing things for Julian since the day they met, since before I even knew either of them, and Julian trusted him the way you trust gravity, without question, without even really thinking about it.

"와, this looks amazing," Julian said, sliding into his chair. He reached for the soju bottle and started pouring. "부장님, let me get that for you."

"I can pour my own."

"No, no, you're the guest. Sojung, come sit."

I sat. Nathaniel sat across from me, and Julian sat at the head of the table between us, and for a moment we were just three people about to eat dinner, and everything was fine.

Then Nathaniel looked at me.

Just a glance. Half a second. But something in it made my chest tighten, made my hands go cold in my lap, and I thought, what was that, and then I thought, nothing, it was nothing, and then Julian was raising his glass and saying "건배" and we were all drinking and the moment passed.

Except it didn't.

I watched Nathaniel eat. I watched the way he held his chopsticks, the way he chewed slowly, deliberately, like he was tasting every grain of rice. I watched him listen to Julian's stories about the office, about the new intern who couldn't figure out the copy machine, about the team dinner that had gotten out of hand last month. I watched him nod and smile and say the right things, and I thought about how I'd known this man for seven years, how he'd hired me when I was barely an adult, how he'd taught me how to write a proper email and how to handle difficult clients and how to leave work at work, and I realized I didn't know him at all.

Not really.

He was a collection of surfaces. A well-pressed suit. A firm handshake. A voice that never rose above a certain volume. A man who remembered everyone's birthday and no one's secrets.

But sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, I'd catch something else. A flicker. A shadow. Something hungry and patient and very, very old.

I caught it now.

Julian was refilling his glass, his back half-turned, and Nathaniel's eyes found mine across the table, and for one long breath neither of us looked away. His face didn't change. His expression stayed exactly the same. But his eyes, his eyes were saying something I couldn't translate, something that felt like a hand closing around my wrist, and my heart was beating so hard I was sure Julian could hear it, sure the whole building could hear it, and then Julian turned back and said something about the pears and Nathaniel smiled and the moment was gone.

I excused myself to get more banchan from the kitchen.

I stood at the counter with my back to the door and pressed both hands flat against the tile and tried to breathe. What was that. What was that. My thumb was still stinging from the cut, a small bright pain, and I focused on it, let it anchor me, let it pull me back to something I understood.

I'd known Nathaniel for seven years. He was my husband's boss. He was the man who'd given me my first real job, who'd taught me how to be a professional, who'd written me a recommendation letter when I'd applied for the dance academy position, who'd come to our wedding and given a toast that made my mother cry.

He was a good man. Everyone said so.

So why did I feel like I'd just been caught doing something wrong?