When Daniel came home at 10:17 on Sunday morning, I was eating breakfast with our daughter, and for the first time in almost a year, I didn't ask him where he had spent the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cMorning,\u201d he said from the kitchen doorway.<\/p>\n
\u201cMorning,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n
He was wearing the same blue button-down shirt he'd left in Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
There was a crease across the front where it had been slept in, and one side of his collar was folded beneath itself.<\/p>\n
His hair was damp around the temples.<\/p>\n
He smelled faintly of the expensive shower gel he never used at home.<\/p>\n
Emma sat across from me, holding her fork.<\/p>\n
She had been telling me about her college professor, who had changed the requirements for her final design project three weeks before submission.<\/p>\n
Daniel glanced at her.<\/p>\n
Then at the clock.<\/p>\n
Then at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody's up early.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt's after ten,\u201d Emma said.<\/p>\n
He gave a short laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeels earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took another bite of toast.<\/p>\n
Our kitchen looked exactly as it always did on Sunday mornings.<\/p>\n
Sunlight lay across the oak table.<\/p>\n
A skillet rested on the stove.<\/p>\n
The dishwasher hummed beneath the counter.<\/p>\n
A vase of yellow flowers stood beside the window.<\/p>\n
Nothing had changed.<\/p>\n
Except that I had.<\/p>\n
Daniel put his keys next to the fruit bowl.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou two already ate?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere's more in the skillet,\u201d I told him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn't wait?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked surprised.<\/p>\n
For twenty-three years, breakfast had been one of the small rituals that held our marriage together.<\/p>\n
Even when work was busy, even when Emma was small and mornings were chaotic, I usually waited until Daniel came downstairs before eating.<\/p>\n
He made the coffee.<\/p>\n
I cooked the eggs.<\/p>\n
We sat together.<\/p>\n
For years, those mornings had felt like proof that our life was solid.<\/p>\n
Over the previous twelve months, they'd become something else.<\/p>\n
An interrogation.<\/p>\n
Or what Daniel called an interrogation.<\/p>\n
I asked why he'd come home late.<\/p>\n
He told me I was suspicious.<\/p>\n
I asked whether he had stayed at Mark's.<\/p>\n
He said Mark's wife was tired of my questions.<\/p>\n
I asked why he never answered his phone.<\/p>\n
He said I made him feel like a criminal.<\/p>\n
Sometimes he apologized.<\/p>\n
More often, he became angry.<\/p>\n
And I would spend the rest of Sunday trying to repair a disagreement I hadn't wanted.<\/p>\n
That morning, I wasn't interested.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmma,\u201d I said, \u201cyou were telling me about the revised deadline.\u201d<\/p>\n
She glanced at her father.<\/p>\n
Then she looked back at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gave everybody an extra week, but now we have to include a physical model.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat's a lot of additional work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know. The supplies alone are going to cost me another hundred dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel cleared his throat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got in pretty late last night.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
He waited.<\/p>\n
I spread raspberry jam across my toast.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn't want to wake you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
He frowned.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou're not going to ask?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cAsk what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat time I got home. Where I was. Who I was with.\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice carried a trace of irritation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe usual.\u201d<\/p>\n
The usual.<\/p>\n
As though my distress had become as predictable as coffee and toast.<\/p>\n
I set down my knife.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel gave a disbelieving laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you don't care?\u201d<\/p>\n
There had been a time when that question would have devastated me.<\/p>\n
I would have rushed to explain how much I cared.<\/p>\n
I would have reminded him that I worried because I loved him.<\/p>\n
I would have begged him to understand that trust couldn't survive without honesty.<\/p>\n
But I had already said those things.<\/p>\n
Many times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't think there's anything useful left for me to ask,\u201d I told him.<\/p>\n
Emma stopped chewing.<\/p>\n
Daniel looked toward her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn't something we need to discuss in front of our daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned back to Emma.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you still planning to build the model from recycled materials?\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel stood beside the counter another moment.<\/p>\n
Then he picked up his keys again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need a shower.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither of us answered.<\/p>\n
He left the room.<\/p>\n
A few seconds later, I heard him climbing the stairs.<\/p>\n
Emma slowly lowered her fork.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
I studied my daughter.<\/p>\n
At twenty-one, she had Daniel's dark eyes and my mother's expressive mouth.<\/p>\n
She had always been observant.<\/p>\n
When she was little, she'd notice if I changed the location of a picture frame.<\/p>\n
Now she noticed things I desperately wished she didn't have to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'm going to be okay,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
She watched me.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid something happen?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked down at my coffee.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething became clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn't push.<\/p>\n
That kindness nearly undid me.<\/p>\n
Because two days earlier, I'd learned that my husband had been maintaining an entirely separate life.<\/p>\n
And until that Sunday morning, I'd been afraid that telling the truth aloud would make the destruction real.<\/p>\n
It had started with an insurance receipt.<\/p>\n
Friday afternoon, I was sitting at the desk in our upstairs study, searching for proof that we'd paid the annual homeowners insurance premium.<\/p>\n
Our mortgage company had requested documentation.<\/p>\n
Normally, I handled those things.<\/p>\n
Daniel liked to say that I was better at paperwork.<\/p>\n
It was one of the ways we'd divided our responsibilities.<\/p>\n
I handled bills, appointments, the household calendar, and most of Emma's college arrangements.<\/p>\n
Daniel managed our investments and long-term savings.<\/p>\n
For years, the arrangement worked.<\/p>\n
Or I believed it worked.<\/p>\n
We had a comfortable house, two dependable cars, retirement accounts, and enough savings that I could occasionally stop worrying about emergencies.<\/p>\n
We weren't wealthy.<\/p>\n
But we had spent decades building a stable life.<\/p>\n
When Emma started college, we'd agreed that her education would take priority over everything except our mortgage and retirement obligations.<\/p>\n
Daniel had been particularly insistent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't want her beginning adulthood buried in debt,\u201d he'd said.<\/p>\n
I had loved him for that.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the insurance receipt wasn't where I expected it to be.<\/p>\n
I opened our shared desktop computer and searched through recent statements.<\/p>\n
That's when I found the bank notification.<\/p>\n
The subject line referred to an authorized transfer.<\/p>\n
The amount was $38,400.<\/p>\n
At first, I thought it was a mistake.<\/p>\n
I opened the attachment.<\/p>\n
Our joint savings account number appeared at the top.<\/p>\n
Beneath it was a transfer reference to a property management company called Harbor Gate Residential.<\/p>\n
I read it twice.<\/p>\n
I didn't recognize the company.<\/p>\n
I opened the corresponding bank statement.<\/p>\n
The account balance was far lower than Daniel had reported when we'd discussed our finances the previous month.<\/p>\n
My first thought was that he'd moved the money into another account.<\/p>\n
That wouldn't have been unusual.<\/p>\n
Daniel sometimes shifted funds between savings and short-term investments.<\/p>\n
But he always told me.<\/p>\n
Or he used to.<\/p>\n
I searched for the company name.<\/p>\n
Harbor Gate managed several residential buildings across the city.<\/p>\n
One was a renovated apartment complex in the downtown district.<\/p>\n
I stared at the address.<\/p>\n
The building was fifteen minutes from Daniel's office.<\/p>\n
I continued looking through the statements.<\/p>\n
There had been smaller recurring payments.<\/p>\n
Several were around two thousand dollars.<\/p>\n
Others were for utilities and services.<\/p>\n
The first appeared almost nine months earlier.<\/p>\n
I opened the payment details and copied the dates into a notebook.<\/p>\n
Then I found the lease confirmation.<\/p>\n
Daniel had downloaded it to the computer months before.<\/p>\n
The document was saved under an unremarkable file name.<\/p>\n
Its first page listed him as the primary tenant of a one-bedroom apartment.<\/p>\n
There was another name beneath his.<\/p>\n
Rebecca Lawson.<\/p>\n
I knew Rebecca.<\/p>\n
Not well.<\/p>\n
She worked in marketing at Daniel's firm.<\/p>\n
I'd met her at the company holiday dinner two years earlier.<\/p>\n
She was in her late thirties, friendly, and seemed comfortable talking to everyone.<\/p>\n
I remembered that she'd complimented my earrings.<\/p>\n
We'd talked about Emma's university.<\/p>\n
Rebecca had said she always admired people who managed to raise a family while working full-time.<\/p>\n
I had thanked her.<\/p>\n
Then I'd gone home with my husband.<\/p>\n
Now I sat at my desk, reading her name beside his on a lease.<\/p>\n
I didn't scream.<\/p>\n
I didn't throw anything.<\/p>\n
I sat perfectly still.<\/p>\n
Outside, the neighbor's lawn mower started.<\/p>\n
Someone's dog barked.<\/p>\n
An airplane passed overhead.<\/p>\n
The ordinary noises were almost insulting.<\/p>\n
A woman could discover that her marriage had been built around months of lies, and the world would continue as though nothing had happened.<\/p>\n
I read the lease again.<\/p>\n
Then I noticed the starting date.<\/p>\n
February 12.<\/p>\n
I knew that date.<\/p>\n
I knew it because my mother had been admitted to the hospital that afternoon.<\/p>\n
She was eighty-two, frail after several difficult months, and suffering from complications of pneumonia.<\/p>\n
I had sat beside her hospital bed until almost midnight.<\/p>\n
At seven that evening, I'd called Daniel.<\/p>\n
I remembered standing in the corridor beside a vending machine, holding a paper cup of terrible coffee.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you come?\u201d I'd asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't think Mom has much time.\u201d<\/p>\n
He'd sounded distracted.<\/p>\n
\u201cClaire, I'm tied up in a meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan't somebody cover for you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt's not that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
I'd started crying.<\/p>\n
He had sighed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'll be there as soon as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
He arrived after eleven.<\/p>\n
He kissed my forehead.<\/p>\n
He apologized.<\/p>\n
And because I was frightened and exhausted, I believed him.<\/p>\n
My mother died four days later.<\/p>\n
For months afterward, I remembered that evening as the night I needed my husband and work kept him away.<\/p>\n
Now the lease told me something else.<\/p>\n
He had signed an agreement for another home while I sat beside my dying mother.<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
The grief I felt wasn't new.<\/p>\n
It was my old grief, reopened and altered.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether my mother had understood more about my marriage than I'd allowed myself to see.<\/p>\n
Three months before she became ill, she'd asked whether Daniel was treating me kindly.<\/p>\n
I laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
She'd looked at me over the rim of her tea.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat's not quite what I asked.\u201d<\/p>\n
I'd changed the subject.<\/p>\n
Sitting at the computer, I wished desperately that I could have that conversation again.<\/p>\n
Instead, I began printing.<\/p>\n
Statements.<\/p>\n
Transaction histories.<\/p>\n
The lease.<\/p>\n
Payment confirmations.<\/p>\n
I wasn't entirely sure why I was collecting them.<\/p>\n
Perhaps because Daniel had spent so many months making me question my memory that I needed something tangible.<\/p>\n
Something that wouldn't become uncertain after he explained it away.<\/p>\n
I placed the documents in a folder.<\/p>\n
Then I checked another account.<\/p>\n
Our emergency savings were lower than I'd realized.<\/p>\n
So was the cash balance earmarked for Emma's remaining college expenses.<\/p>\n
I couldn't immediately determine whether Daniel had transferred money from the education account or merely shifted our general savings around it.<\/p>\n
The accounts had similar reference numbers.<\/p>\n
Several transfers passed through a linked checking account.<\/p>\n
It was confusing.<\/p>\n
That frightened me almost as much as the apartment.<\/p>\n
I'd trusted him to protect our daughter's future.<\/p>\n
Now I couldn't tell where the money had gone.<\/p>\n
I checked the time.<\/p>\n
Three thirty-seven.<\/p>\n
Daniel wasn't due home until seven.<\/p>\n
I called my sister.<\/p>\n
Ruth answered on the second ring.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat's wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
She always knew.<\/p>\n
Even when we were children, she could identify my bad days from the way I said hello.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I send you something?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBank statements.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cClaire?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Daniel has an apartment with another woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
I heard a chair scrape.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you alone?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSend them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruth was sixty, a retired credit union manager, and the practical person in our family.<\/p>\n
When our father died, she organized the paperwork.<\/p>\n
When our mother became ill, she made charts for the medications.<\/p>\n
She had a way of becoming calm when everyone else was frightened.<\/p>\n
Within an hour, she called back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want you to listen carefully,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon't delete anything. Don't alter the accounts. Save copies of everything you can lawfully access.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI've printed them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you tell where the money went?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of it. Not all. There are transfers between accounts I need to match.\u201d<\/p>\n
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.<\/p>\n
\u201cRuth, what am I supposed to do?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don't need to decide your whole life tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
I started crying then.<\/p>\n
Not loudly.<\/p>\n
Just tears I couldn't stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cI've spent months asking him to tell me the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought if I asked the right question, he'd finally answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruth was quiet.<\/p>\n
Then she said something that stayed with me.<\/p>\n
\u201cClaire, you can't make honesty happen by asking more carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward the framed family photograph beside the desk.<\/p>\n
Daniel, Emma, and me on a beach six summers earlier.<\/p>\n
We were sunburned and laughing.<\/p>\n
He had one arm around each of us.<\/p>\n
I'd always thought it was one of our happiest pictures.<\/p>\n
Now I wondered what happiness meant when only one person knew the whole story.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome over tomorrow,\u201d Ruth said. \u201cWe'll go through everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't want Emma involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen don't involve her until you know what you need to tell her.\u201d<\/p>\n
After we hung up, I sat for a while.<\/p>\n
Then I looked up the name of a family attorney Ruth had mentioned after a friend went through a divorce.<\/p>\n
I wrote down the number.<\/p>\n
I didn't call.<\/p>\n
Not yet.<\/p>\n
When Daniel arrived home Friday evening, he kissed my cheek.<\/p>\n
I was standing at the stove.<\/p>\n
He smelled of cold air and the cologne I'd bought him for Christmas.<\/p>\n
\u201cLong day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow was yours?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFine.\u201d<\/p>\n
He opened the refrigerator.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything interesting happen?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I nearly asked.<\/p>\n
Do you have another apartment?<\/p>\n
Who's Rebecca to you?<\/p>\n
Did you sign that lease while my mother was dying?<\/p>\n
But I remembered the statements in the folder upstairs.<\/p>\n
I remembered how quickly he'd turned previous conversations into arguments about my tone.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing I want to discuss tonight,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He barely noticed.<\/p>\n
Saturday morning, he left early.<\/p>\n
He said he was meeting Mark for lunch.<\/p>\n
Mark had been his friend since college.<\/p>\n
They played poker together every few weeks, although Daniel's overnight absences had gradually become more frequent.<\/p>\n
For a long time, I accepted that explanation.<\/p>\n
Eventually I started asking Mark's wife, Denise, whether the men were still meeting.<\/p>\n
She'd sounded confused the last time.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoker?\u201d she'd repeated.<\/p>\n
Then she'd recovered.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I haven't been keeping track.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was embarrassed that I'd called her.<\/p>\n
Now I wondered whether she'd been embarrassed too.<\/p>\n
Saturday afternoon, I scanned the financial documents and sent them to Ruth.<\/p>\n
Then I began writing down what I remembered.<\/p>\n
Not accusations.<\/p>\n
Dates.<\/p>\n
Places.<\/p>\n
Conversations.<\/p>\n
The evening Daniel missed Emma's university exhibition.<\/p>\n
The weekend he claimed a client emergency had required him to stay downtown.<\/p>\n
The restaurant receipt I'd found in his coat pocket.<\/p>\n
The unexplained withdrawal before Christmas.<\/p>\n
As I wrote, individual incidents that had once seemed small began forming a pattern.<\/p>\n
He'd been building a life elsewhere.<\/p>\n
And I'd been doing the work required to keep ours functioning.<\/p>\n
I hadn't seen it because I was busy trying to hold everything together.<\/p>\n
That night, I cooked pasta for myself.<\/p>\n
Emma was out with friends.<\/p>\n
Daniel didn't come home.<\/p>\n
At 12:34, he texted.<\/p>\n
Poker ran late. Staying at Mark's. Love you.<\/p>\n
I read the message.<\/p>\n
Then I placed the phone facedown.<\/p>\n
I slept badly.<\/p>\n
But I didn't lie awake imagining where he might be.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I knew enough to stop imagining.<\/p>\n
Sunday morning, Emma came downstairs around nine.<\/p>\n
She was wearing old sweatpants and one of Daniel's college sweatshirts.<\/p>\n
She looked sleepy.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we make eggs?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n
We cooked together.<\/p>\n
She chopped tomatoes while I whisked eggs.<\/p>\n
She complained about her professor.<\/p>\n
I laughed when she described a classmate who'd accidentally glued his project to the studio table.<\/p>\n
For half an hour, I felt almost ordinary.<\/p>\n
Then the garage door opened.<\/p>\n
Daniel came into the kitchen wearing his blue shirt.<\/p>\n
And the conversation I'd rehearsed all night suddenly seemed unnecessary.<\/p>\n
After breakfast, he followed me into the laundry room.<\/p>\n
I was folding a gray sweater.<\/p>\n
\u201cClaire.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn't turn.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre we okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou say that like it doesn't bother you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I smoothed the sweater.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt bothered me for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I'm tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stepped closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat's that supposed to mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means I'm finished arguing about where you sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a long silence.<\/p>\n
Then he asked, \u201cAre you planning something?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA conversation we should have had months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
My phone vibrated.<\/p>\n
Ruth had sent another message.<\/p>\n
I'd noticed something in the statement references. Call me before you speak to him. It concerns Emma's account.<\/p>\n
I read the words twice.<\/p>\n
Daniel watched my face.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho's that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sister.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does she want?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething about the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n
His expression changed.<\/p>\n
Not dramatically.<\/p>\n
But enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich bank?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
He recovered.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause we have several accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d I said. \u201cWe do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before he could answer, Emma appeared in the hallway.<\/p>\n
She was holding her backpack.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad, did you transfer the money for my registration deposit?\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel blinked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat deposit?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one I emailed you about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh. Right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI've been busy, Em.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know. But I need to confirm it tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI'll handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He sounded irritated.<\/p>\n
Emma nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
She went upstairs for her charger.<\/p>\n
I watched Daniel.<\/p>\n
Until that moment, I'd been afraid of what the affair meant for me.<\/p>\n
Now I was afraid of what his decisions might mean for our daughter.<\/p>\n
Daniel reached toward my arm.<\/p>\n
\u201cClaire, what's happening?\u201d<\/p>\n
I stepped aside.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'm going to Ruth's.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo understand our finances.\u201d<\/p>\n
His face hardened.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou've been going through my accounts?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could have asked me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean before making it into something.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought about every Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
Every argument.<\/p>\n
Every apology I'd made for asking a reasonable question.<\/p>\n
\u201cDaniel, I spent almost a year asking you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn't answer.<\/p>\n
I picked up my keys.<\/p>\n
And for the first time in twenty-three years, I walked out of the house without waiting for my husband to decide whether I was allowed to be upset.<\/p>\n
END PART 1<\/p>\n