My husband was constantly visiting our surrogate mother to make sure she was okay. I hid a tape recorder, and what I heard ended our marriage.

He chuckled softly, with that laugh you use when something sounds a little ridiculous. Then he left through the door before I could even move away from the kitchen to follow him.

And it kept happening.

Once I grabbed my coat and said to him, “Wait, I’m coming with you.”

Ethan stopped at the door. “You don’t have to.”

That hurt.

Sometimes he would come back with small new things.

“He has a craving for oranges.”

“His back hurts.”

“The baby kicked today.”

Those details were supposed to include me, but instead they made me feel like someone reading postcards from a vacation they weren’t invited to.

And then there were the folders.

Ethan had always liked being organized, but this was different. He kept receipts, medical notes, printed ultrasound photos. Everything was neatly arranged and labeled.

“Why do you keep all that?” I asked him one night.

He shrugged. “Just for being organized.”

I nodded, but something about it seemed excessive to me.

Finally, one night, I said what I had been thinking for weeks.

“Ethan, don’t you think you visit Claire too often?”