Maria saw his SUV in the mall parking lot at five o’clock on a stormy day while she was leaving the Bed Bath & Beyond and he was supposed to be two hundred miles away in Indianapolis attending a conference of dentists.  The big Acura sat lonely and conspicuous in a corner, tucked up against the access road.  What made her notice was the bumper sticker.  Anderson 1980 on a vehicle only a year old.  Joe bought it on a novelty web site. Impossible that two identical vehicles would sport the same retro political sticker. 

      She drove over in her battered Volvo wagon and parked beside it.  Cabrón.  She had known, but they had two children in Montessori preschool, and her parents in Mexico were ecstatic that her gringo husband was the host to her paradise.  Jesus Christo.  She could smell other women in his clothes as she washed them, like a maid, like a peasant.  Like a domestic in a laundry while her children squalled for more juice, more toys, more attention. 

      The marriage had to continue.  The dollars needed to go home to Guadalajara and the kids needed every advantage she could win them.  She wouldn’t complain, wouldn’t open her mouth.  Reaching in the console, she fished out the spare key to the Acura.  Leaning inside, she put the key in the ignition, rolled down the windows and opened the sunroof, then locked the doors and ducked back into her Volvo.  She drove home thinking explain how that happened in Indianapolis.  Outside, the rain pounded.  She turned up the radio.