At 8 AM it was gone.

I met her at the front door. I didn’t even greet her. I walked right past her and out to her old Toyota truck. It was a 1985 pickup with almost 400,000 miles. It had a cracked windshield and used tires, but it ran like a champ. She had purchased it when were divorcing for the first time. That divorce never happened, but this one would. I searched the bed and the cab. It didn’t take long, just a quick glance, but I made it obvious…I searched well beyond the necessary effort. I knew it wasn’t there. The box was too big to hide. I just wanted her to know that I knew. I walked back to the house. She was standing in the living room staring at me with a stupid look. The look she used to have when she was playing me for stupid. The “I have no clue what you mean” look. I said, “Where is the box?” “Box?”, she stammered. She’s lying. I know she’s lying. I said, “Yeah, the box. Where is it?” She said, “What box are you talking about?” I was getting pissed and a little paranoid. “There was a green box in the closet last night. I found it about 2 AM while I was looking for a computer part in the closet. It was full of pictures. Pictures of people that I don’t know. Where is it?” Kelly looked at me blankly and said, “What did it look like?” I replied that it was a Rubbermaid box, smaller than the others and green. The other boxes were blue. She said, “I moved us into this house. I know everything we have and I have never seen a box like that.” Liar!

It had been there! At two o’clock in the morning it was there, but at 8 AM it wasn’t. I really was looking for a computer component. I had been tinkering with my old computer, I couldn’t sleep since the confrontation we had the week before when I found the suspicious e-mails to people back home. She wanted to leave. She said she couldn’t handle me being away in Afghanistan. When I confronted her she swore that she was only having a hard time with the separation, but since I was back she had never been happier and didn’t really want to leave. There was other stuff but not quite so obviously stated. She’d been cheating but I couldn’t prove it. I found the box, but really didn’t think too much about it. It contained pictures of people I didn’t know, but she fancied herself an amateur photographer. Besides, all of the pictures were taking in places that I recognized. The VFW mostly. I set it aside and made a mental note to look at it in the morning when she went to work, but at 8 AM it was gone.

The next week she stood crying in my living room saying, “I need the house for a few hours. Can you go meet up with Angela for coffee?” I had been in love with Angela since I was 18 years old and Kelly was jealous of her. I laughed in Kelly’s face and said, “Sure, I can call Angela.” I took her keys, her cell phone, her credit cards, and checks and told her to lock up when she left. I also told her to call me from the house so I would know when it was safe to come back. As I was walking out the door I turned around to her and said, “You’re leaving now…so tell me the truth…what happened to the box?” “There was no box”, she replied and then closed the door.

I had only been home from Afghanistan for a month. My leave was ending that night. She waited until my leave was over to leave me. I was pissed. Angela went with me to Fort Campbell to sign in off of leave. Then we got a pizza, some beer, rented a movie, and sat in my house and laughed at the comedy that we had rented. I cried when Angela left that night. I was alone.