(Story begins here.)
Tiffany nodded her head in agreement meekly. There was no use trying to argue against him when he was in his ``my word is law'' mood, exemplified by annoyance, brashness and a tendency to raise his voice. Tricia knew about this side of his before, but it had never really been a problem; he rarely flared up and when he did, he often realised it quick enough to just cut himself off to cool down.
This time though, he did not quite cut himself off fast enough, and instead just sat there on the couch to peruse the newspaper of the day. That subtle point was lost on Tiffany, who was glad that he was home, but somewhat sad that he would once again have to spend many late evenings at the office to work on the big case. She missed him dearly during that case that she brought up that had happened a couple of years back, though it was partially ameliorated through the nightly phone calls he would make to her to said good night to her just before she was to retire for the night. She had been through this before, she knew what to expect. It was all for the family; it could not be helped.
It started as it was like originally, he would be late, and at roughly nine he would give her a call to kiss her goodnight, before stealing into bed at roughly midnight to sleep. But then, it started to become erratic. There would be a night or two that he would be in the office, reading briefs and evidence and writing summaries for his other team members to read so that they don't have to waste time reading the same pile of documents again, coming back only on the next next. Sometimes he would call her, some times he would not, especially during the times where he was going to spend the entire evening at the office again. Still, it was very similar to his behaviour back in the other big case in the past, and Tiffany was not worried about it at all.
But days turn to weeks, and the weeks steadily turned to months. Tiffany had settled down comfortably in her role as primary care-giver to Tricia, and was starting to get used to her husband's increasing absence. On the rare occasion when he came back and she was still awake, she would gingerly ask him how were things, and he would reply in a gruff and tired voice that it was just going to get worse the closer they were to the trial date, and even hinted that during the trial itself he might have to camp out at the office on a long term basis to make sure that things were going smooth.
That came as a small shock to Tiffany. In that previous case, no matter how busy things got, he would never broach the subject of bivouacking at the office, always making a point to make his way home, no matter how later or tired he was. At the very least, he would come back for a quick shower and a change of clothes, before heading back out to the office again to prepare witnesses, write briefs, and read more case-related documents. To boldly declare that he might have to camp out at the office over a longer series of consecutive nights was just one of the most unexpected things to be heard.
She started to suspect that perhaps he was involved in an affair of some sort.
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