Over breakfast I said I had dreamed about cheating on him. Marko laughed and asked whether the man in the dream at least had a better car. I accepted the joke with relief. Then I added that the dream had felt unusually real. I described a hotel corridor, a yellow carpet, and the jacket I had left on a chair. I omitted the date. Everything else had happened on Friday, three days before that breakfast, while Marko believed I was at work.
I thought his response would tell me whether I could confess. If he became angry at a dream, I would stay silent. If he said people could not control themselves while sleeping, perhaps I could find a way to bring the conversation closer to the waking world. I did not admit this so clearly to myself. I said I was preparing him for a difficult conversation. In reality I wanted an ending where I received forgiveness before saying what I had done.
The next day I said I had dreamed the same thing again. This time, I added, I immediately regretted it in the dream and returned home. Marko put down his cup. He asked why I was telling him. I said the guilt troubled me. He replied that he could not sit in judgment on my dreams. I wanted to ask what he would do if it had really happened, but I could already hear how that question would sound. Instead I offered more coffee.
On the third evening he interrupted as soon as I mentioned the corridor. He said the carpet never changed, the jacket never changed, only I became a better person at the end each time. He had no proof. He had me, too attentive to every detail that could not help my case. I began crying before confessing and saw him prepare to comfort me. Then I said it had not been a dream. His face stopped halfway through a movement.
He did not ask about the car. He asked whether I had ever intended to return immediately, as I had described. I said no. I stayed until evening and afterward ate dinner with him as though nothing had happened. That part was difficult to say because it left the least room for accident. Marko asked me to stop discussing how bad I had felt. He wanted to know what I had done, without subsequent improvements to my character.
For several weeks we slept separately. I did not know whether the marriage would survive. When we finally talked without interruptions, I did not begin with the dream, loneliness, or how the other man had looked at me. I began with Friday. Marko listened and sometimes asked questions I did not want to answer. I no longer offered another ending. For the first time he had the whole story, and the decision that followed would not belong only to me.