Part 1Secret of the Mango

The evening sun was dipping below the skyline as I walked into the kitchen to start on dinner.

When I opened the trash can under the sink, a thick, cloyingly sweet scent hit my face. It was the heavy smell of overripe fruit.

There, buried under a pile of vegetable scraps and eggshells, was a fresh mango pit. The flesh had been gnawed completely clean.

My hands froze.

Oliver was allergic to mangoes. Deathly allergic.

If even a drop of the juice touched his skin, within ten minutes the area would swell, turn angrily red, and break out in a dense cluster of hives.

For the five years we had been married, this was an ironclad rule in our house. Mangoes simply did not cross the threshold. Even mango-flavored candies were strictly banned.

There was absolutely no way he ate this.

Who did?

Who had been in my kitchen while I was at work, casually eating a mango like they owned the place?

I stared at the gnawed pit. That sickeningly sweet smell hanging in the air suddenly felt suffocating.

The sound of a key turning in the front door broke the silence. It was Oliver.

"Honey, I'm home."

His voice carried a hint of exhaustion. I heard him kick off his loafers and step into the living room.

I arranged my features into a neutral expression and turned around, watching him drop his briefcase on the console table and shrug off his suit jacket.

"You're home early," I said.

"Yeah, finally wrapped up the quarterly presentation. I can actually breathe for a second." He loosened his silk tie, his eyes scanning the kitchen. "Smells interesting. What are you making?"

"I haven't decided yet." I kept my eyes locked on him. My voice was deadpan. "By the way, did we have company today?"

His hands stopped moving on his tie. Just for a fraction of a second.

He looked up, a perfectly crafted mask of confusion on his face. "Huh? No. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing really." I let my gaze slowly travel over his face. "There's a fresh mango pit in the trash. I just thought it was weird."

Oliver swallowed hard. I watched his Adam's apple bob before he forced a tired, dismissive chuckle.

"Oh, right! That. Jesus, I completely forgot. The building management sent a maintenance guy up this afternoon to check the smoke detectors in the hallway."

He waved his hand dismissively. "The poor guy was sweating bullets. We still had that fruit basket the HOA sent over, and since there was a mango in it and I obviously can't eat it, I just tossed it to him."

He rattled off the explanation incredibly fast, even throwing in a little theatrical annoyance at the messy blue-collar worker tossing garbage in our bin.

"Is that so?" I nodded slowly. "Makes sense."

I turned back to the kitchen counter. The ghostly scent of mango still clung to the inside of my nose.

The HOA did send a fruit basket, true. But that was last week.

There had been exactly one mango in it. I remembered it perfectly, because the second I unpacked it, I walked right across the hall and gave it to the neighbor's kid.

There was no second mango.

Later that night, while I was taking Oliver's suit jacket to the dry-cleaning pile, I fished a crumpled receipt out of the inner pocket.

I smoothed out the wrinkled paper. The ink was faded, but the details were crystal clear.

The name on the order was Molly. The items were an iced Americano and a mango crepe cake.

Oliver practically lived on Americanos. So that meant the mango crepe...

A cold, razor-sharp realization settled in my chest.

My husband was screwing around. And he was doing it with a girl who had a sweet tooth for mangoes.