the right shoe

For a man, knowing too much about his wife’s past can be a real headache. For a woman, knowing a little too much about her husband’s present can be heartbreaking.

But if you’ve already found out—and can handle it the way this wife did—then you truly have mastered the art of being a wife.

At six in the evening, she called her husband’s company. The security guard told her, “The boss just left for dinner at a restaurant.”

Something in her gut told her otherwise.

She knew exactly where he was.

Not at a restaurant.

He was at her house.

At eight, after feeding the children, she rode her motorbike straight to the woman’s house. Her husband’s car was parked inside the yard.

Her instincts had not betrayed her.

Something hot rose into her throat, but she swallowed it back before it could become tears or rage.

She didn’t ring the bell.

She didn’t bang on the door.

She didn’t scream.

Instead, she slipped off the shoe on her right foot, hung it on the inside of the iron gate, then rode home and quietly helped the children with their homework.

It was nearly eleven when the boss finally straightened his clothes, ran a hand through his thoroughly rumpled hair, and prepared to leave.

The woman opened the door for him wearing a thin, alluring nightdress. Then she froze when she noticed a single shoe hanging from the iron gate.

“Why is there a shoe here?” she asked. “A beautiful right shoe, too.”

“Forget about it. Go back inside and get some sleep. No matter how beautiful it is, one shoe alone is useless.”

On the drive home, the boss couldn’t stop thinking about that shoe.

Whose was it?

And why had someone hung it there?

He pulled the car into the garage and opened the gate as quietly as he could.

Then he saw it.

A woman’s left shoe, placed neatly on the doorstep.

He stood there, completely frozen, staring at it for nearly two minutes.

Then he went into the spare bedroom.

He didn’t want to hear his wife nagging, crying, or screaming.

But sleep refused to come.

A storm was coming.

There would be tears. Shouting. Perhaps a divorce petition.

And then the two children would become miserable, run away from home, fall in with the wrong crowd, and ruin their lives...

That would be the most terrifying tragedy of all.

Yet the next morning, everything went on as though nothing had happened.

A steaming bowl of beef noodle soup was waiting neatly on the table, along with a little note from his wife:

“I’m taking the children to school. Have your breakfast and go to work. The sky looks gloomy today, so you should wear the light-colored suit and a light-colored tie. I’ve ironed them and hung them in the closet.”

The boss called the woman.

“That right shoe belongs to my wife. Don’t throw it away.”

Her voice on the other end sounded frightened.

“Oh my God! Do whatever you want, but if she comes here and makes a scene, I’ll never be able to show my face again. Come by this afternoon and take the shoe back.”

Days passed.

Still, no storm came.

His wife remained calm, almost unnervingly so.

Yet the single shoe sitting on the doorstep kept reminding him of the loneliness—and the guilt—of a man who had betrayed someone who trusted him.

Then, one afternoon, he finally gathered enough courage.

He took the right shoe out of his car trunk and carefully placed it beside his wife’s left shoe.

When she came home from work, she stopped dead on the doorstep.

She stood there for several seconds.

Then she rushed inside, threw her arms around her husband, and whispered:

“Oh... my right shoe!”

He held her tightly and whispered into her ear:

“I’m sorry. I’m a thousand times sorry.”