When I finally decided to accompany my husband to his ex-wife’s house, I never expected to find her in a silk robe with perfect hair and glossy lips. But that wasn’t nearly as shocking as the look on her face when she saw me standing beside him.
The day I met Henry was the day I stopped believing in coincidences. We bumped into each other at a bookstore, both reaching for the same dog-eared copy of “The Great Gatsby.”
Five years of marriage later, and I still get butterflies when he walks through our front door after work.
Well, most days anyway.
A man smiling | Source: Midjourney
“Mel, have you seen my toolbox?” Henry called out from the garage.
I stirred the pasta sauce simmering on the stove and checked my watch. 6:30 p.m. on a Tuesday. Dinner was almost ready.
“Under the workbench, where it always is,” I called back.
The metallic clang of tools told me he’d found it.
A man standing near a toolbox | Source: Pexels
A moment later, he appeared in the kitchen doorway, toolbox in hand and car keys dangling from his fingers.
“Going somewhere?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“Liz called. Her garbage disposal is making a weird noise, and she’s worried it might be something serious.”
I set down my wooden spoon harder than necessary. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” He gave me an apologetic smile. “I’ll heat mine up when I get back. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
The front door closed before I could respond.
A doorknob | Source: Pexels
I turned off the burner and leaned against the counter, suddenly not hungry anymore.
My husband doesn’t jump when I ask him to hang a shelf or fix the dripping faucet in our bathroom. But when his ex-wife called about a broken towel bar? He was out the door in five minutes flat.
At first, I tried to be cool.
They share a past, I told myself. And he’s “just helping.“
But then came the third, fourth, and fifth request in as many weeks. Leaky sink. Broken garage remote. Sprinkler not working.
A close-up shot of a sprinkler | Source: Pexels
Each time he’d sigh dramatically and say, “She has no one else, and I don’t want the house getting ruined.”
You’d think he was talking about a national landmark instead of the three-bedroom colonial they’d bought together before their divorce. The house he insisted on co-owning with her “until the market improves.”
“It’s just business, Melanie,” he’d explained when we first started dating. “We both invested in the property, and neither of us wants to sell at a loss.”
A house | Source: Pexels
I believed him then. But now, five years later, I was starting to wonder.
The next morning, I placed a steaming cup of coffee on the nightstand beside our bed. Henry groaned and opened one eye.
“What time did you get in last night?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the mattress.
“Around eleven, I think.” He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “The garbage disposal was fine, but then her kitchen sink started leaking. Had to replace the gasket.”
“Four hours to replace a gasket?”
He took a sip of coffee. “She made dinner. Would’ve been rude not to stay.”
A man holding a coffee mug | Source: Pexels
I stared at him. “She made you dinner.”
“It wasn’t planned, Mel. She felt bad about the time.”
I stood up and walked to the window, pushing back the curtains to let in the morning sunlight.
Our backyard needed attention. The flower beds were overrun with weeds, and the deck desperately needed a fresh coat of stain.
But Henry? He was too busy.
“You know,” I said, keeping my voice light, “our bathroom faucet has been dripping for three weeks.”
A close-up shot of a faucet | Source: Pexels
Henry sighed. “I’ll get to it this weekend, I promise.”
But he didn’t. Because Saturday morning, Liz called about a wobbly banister.
***
One night, after he’d missed our anniversary dinner to fix Liz’s garage door opener, I found myself alone on our couch with a glass of wine and an untouched cheesecake from our favorite bakery.
A cheesecake | Source: Pexels
“Just tell me the truth,” I said when he finally walked through the door at 10:30 p.m. “Are you still in love with her?”
Henry looked genuinely shocked. “What? No! God, Mel, how could you think that?”
“Let me see,” I ticked off reasons on my fingers. “She calls, you run. She needs help, you drop everything. Our faucet’s been dripping for weeks, but her loose cabinet hinge is an emergency.”
He sat beside me on the couch, smelling faintly of sawdust.
“It’s not like that,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “She’s…she’s just helpless when it comes to home maintenance. You know how to do things. You’re capable.”
A man sitting in his living room | Source: Midjourney
“So, I’m being punished for being self-sufficient?”
“No, that’s not what I—”
“She’s manipulating you, Henry. And you’re letting her.”
His jaw tightened. “That’s not fair. She just needs help sometimes.”
“We all need help sometimes. But most of us call a professional, not an ex-spouse.”
The conversation ended the way they always did, with Henry promising to set better boundaries and me pretending to believe him.
***
A week later, I was in the middle of a work presentation when my phone lit up with Henry’s text:
“Liz called. Flooding in kitchen. Going over now. Might be late.”
A woman using her phone | Source: Pexels
I stared at those words until they blurred.
When I got home, Henry was packing his toolbox.
“Ready to go play hero?” I asked, setting my laptop bag on the counter.
He didn’t look up. “It’s not like that.”
“Fine,” I said, grabbing my purse. “Let’s go.”
His head jerked up. “What?”
“Let’s go. I’ll ride with you.”
“You want to come with me to Liz’s house?”
A man talking | Source: Midjourney
“If we’re protecting your assets,” I said with a smile that felt sharp on my face, “I should be involved, right?”
He hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”
The 15-minute drive to Liz’s house was silent except for the radio playing softly in the background. I watched familiar neighborhoods roll by, wondering how many times Henry had made this journey without me.
The view from a car | Source: Pexels
We pulled up to a well-kept colonial with fresh paint and manicured shrubs.
Liz opened the door wearing a silk robe, her hair perfect, lip gloss shiny. She froze when she saw me standing beside Henry.
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t know you were bringing company.”
I smiled sweetly. “Surprise.”
She glanced at Henry. “I didn’t think you’d bring your plus one to fix plumbing.”
Henry brushed past us both and headed toward the kitchen.
“Where’s the flooding?” he asked, not quite meeting either of our eyes.
A man standing in a kitchen, looking down | Source: Midjourney
“Right this way,” Liz said.
I followed them through a living room that was spotless. There were no signs of a woman in crisis over home repairs.
The kitchen was equally immaculate. The only evidence of any “flooding” was a small puddle beneath the sink that looked suspiciously fresh. I’d bet my wedding ring it hadn’t been there five minutes before we arrived.
A clean kitchen | Source: Pexels
“It just started gushing,” Liz explained. “I was so scared.”
“I’m sure you were,” I murmured, leaning against the counter. “Good thing Henry’s always on call.”
Henry glanced back at me with a warning look, then turned his attention to the pipes. “It’s just a loose connection,” he said after a moment. “Hand me the wrench from my toolbox, would you?”
Before Liz could move, I picked up the toolbox and brought it over. “Here you go, honey.”
As he worked, I took the opportunity to look around. There were no signs of a man’s presence in the house. No razors in the bathroom, no extra toothbrush, no men’s shoes by the door.
Skincare products in a bathroom | Source: Pexels
So, Liz wasn’t calling Henry because she had a new boyfriend who was useless at home repairs. She was calling him because she wanted him here.
“Would either of you like something to drink?” Liz asked. “I made fresh lemonade.”
“No, thank you,” I replied before Henry could answer. “We have dinner plans.”
Henry looked up, confused. We did not have any dinner plans, but he said nothing.
“All done,” he announced after a few minutes, closing up the cabinet beneath the sink. “It was just a loose connection. Should be fine now.”
A kitchen sink | Source: Pexels
“My hero,” Liz said, placing a hand on his arm. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’d call a plumber,” I interjected. “Like the rest of us do.”
While Henry washed his hands in the bathroom, I pulled a folded piece of paper from my purse and handed it to Liz.
Her eyes narrowed as she unfolded it. “What’s this?”
“Resources,” I said simply.
On it was a tidy list of three reputable plumbers, a gardener, two electricians, and a screenshot of the most popular dating app (circled and labeled “friendly matches nearby!”).
A piece of paper | Source: Midjourney
And beneath it all, I’d written, “If you continue calling my husband, I’ll assume you can’t read.”
Her face flushed red.
“You think you’re so clever,” she hissed in a low voice. “You have no idea what Henry and I shared.”
“I know exactly what you shared,” I smiled. “The past. What we share is the present and the future.”
“He comes running every time I call,” she whispered. “What does that tell you?”
“That he’s loyal and kind,” I replied. “And that you’re exploiting those qualities.”
When I heard the bathroom door open, I said in a normal volume, “You don’t need a man. You need maintenance.”
A door handle | Source: Pexels
Henry came back into the kitchen, looking between us with uncertainty. “Everything okay?”
“Perfect,” I said, linking my arm through his. “Ready to go home?”
The drive back was quiet at first. Then Henry cleared his throat. “That was… awkward.”
“Was it? I thought it was enlightening.”
He glanced at me. “What does that mean?”
I reached into my bag and pulled out another piece of paper. It was a business card for a divorce lawyer. I’d even written the address on the back.
Henry stared at it when we stopped at a red light. “Seriously? You’re giving me an ultimatum?”
A red light | Source: Pexels
“Not an ultimatum. A choice.” I placed the card on the dashboard. “If you want to keep fixing her house, you can live in it too.”
The light turned green, but Henry didn’t move right away. A car behind us honked.
“I didn’t realize how it looked,” he finally said, accelerating slowly. “She really does need help—”
“So do I,” I interrupted. “I need a husband who’s present. Who fixes our dripping faucet. Who shows up for anniversary dinners.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he picked up the lawyer’s card, looked at it, and tucked it into the glovebox.
A man driving a car | Source: Pexels
“I’ll call her tomorrow,” he said. “Tell her I can’t be her handyman anymore.”
“You’d do that?”
He reached over and took my hand. “I choose you, Mel. I always have.”
That was three months ago. We haven’t been back to Liz’s since.
I heard that she found someone. A very capable man from one of the numbers I gave her. He installed a new water heater and brought her flowers, apparently.
As for us? My faucet finally got fixed. And my husband? Let’s just say he now knows who really holds the toolbox in this marriage.
A man sitting on a couch | Source: Midjourney
If you enjoyed reading this story, here’s another one you might like: Seeing a box on our porch on Mother’s Day made me curious because I wasn’t expecting any presents. But when I opened the mysterious package labeled “For the kids,” my blood ran cold. Some gifts aren’t just gifts. Some come with truths that shake the ground beneath your feet.
