Henry Long, continued

Part 1

Part 2

Sara Long was finally sick to death of collecting dirty socks from the floor of her husband's closet. Of course he would point his "improvement." They were all in one place and out of sight instead of strewn throughout the house. Henry's socks had been a point of contention since their wedding day. Why couldn't he see that with just a few more steps, they'd land in a a laundry basket and she'd have one less thing on her to-do list?

Well, as of today, it was off her to-do list once and for all. Maybe when he ran out of socks, he'd think about putting his pile in a clothes hamper. Maybe not. But she wouldn't be picking them up anymore.

Perhaps it had just been too hard for him to understand the length of her daily chores list, the endless collection of mundane chores she could do by rote, but that left little time for anything interesting or challenging. His daily to-do list had always been maddeningly simple. Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, change clothes, read the paper, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed. Occasionally there had been a dog to walk between TV and bedtime. And he'd been good about helping the kids with homework and class projects. Even then, though, he never took it seriously enough. There was way too much giggling when he was involved. The last thing she wanted was her girls becoming those giggling, witless twits who snapped gum constantly while they filed their nails.

Well, at least that hadn't happened.

Sara marshaled her thoughts and put them back on task, thinking about the day ahead while she rolled through her morning routine. A routine. That's what Henry needed. His vacations were way too long these days. What company in its right mind would work their senior architect to death for months with endless overtime and then turn him loose to get under her feet for three whole weeks straight? It made no sense.

Her friend Betty Ann insisted he was having an affair, the notion of which still made Sara laugh. Good heavens. Betty Ann had this idea that life was scripted by the steamy book-of-the-month romance novels she devoured. No, if there was one thing she knew about Henry, it was the fact that he was a terrible sneak and a worse liar, so he didn't even bother trying.