My Wife Left the Night I Lost My Job. Four Days Later, She Found the Folder I Had Hidden for Over a Year—and Thought It Proved I Was Planning to Leave Her.

The morning after my wife walked out, I still poured two cups of coffee.

Habit is embarrassing like that.

My alarm went off at 6:00.

I showered.

Put on a button-down shirt.

Walked into the kitchen.

Opened the cabinet.

And reached automatically for two mugs.

Mine was dark green with a crack near the handle.

Marissa’s was pale gray with a tiny painted bird on one side.

I set both on the counter.

Then remembered she was gone.

Her suitcase was gone too.

So were her overnight bag, her favorite cardigan, half the bathroom drawer, and the little perfume bottle she had kept beside the sink since our third anniversary.

Twenty hours earlier, I had come home unemployed.

Eighteen hours earlier, my wife had left.