The Earrings My Husband Swore He’d Never Seen

A Pretext and a Startling Discovery

I knew I needed more information. So, I baked a loaf of banana bread and went to Nisha’s apartment, using the bread as a friendly pretext. I apologized for our strange encounter in the elevator, telling her, “I wasn’t accusing you—just surprised to see something identical.” She accepted the bread, but her eyes were shifty. She repeated her story, “my boyfriend gave them to me. He… said he got them from a friend.”

The word “friend” immediately put me on high alert. Just as I was about to leave, my heart skipped a beat. On her side table, I saw a small jewelry box—the exact same velvet box that my earrings came in. I didn’t say anything, but I knew I had stumbled upon a huge clue.

I went home and confronted my husband with this new information. That’s when the whole story finally came tumbling out. His whole face seemed to deflate as he said, “I think I know what happened. But you’re not going to like it.”

He confessed that he had “lent” the earrings to Nisha’s boyfriend, a man named Tariq, whom he had only recently met. Tariq had told my husband that he was short on cash and was thinking about selling some gold jewelry. My husband, trying to be “helpful,” had taken the earrings out of my drawer without telling me and showed them to Tariq. Tariq said he just wanted to “borrow” them for a day to show a jeweler friend. My husband, in a shocking lapse of judgment, actually handed them over.

I was stunned. “So you just handed them over? Without even telling me?” My husband, looking at the floor, said he “thought it was harmless” and didn’t believe Tariq would keep them.

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