I closed the browser and opened my text messages, scrolling back in my history with Mike until I got to Tuesday night.

  Two texts. One at 6:22 p.m.

  Won’t be home until late. Client dinner.

  Typical. I opened the second, two hours later.

  Have to stay the night. Clients want to show me the project in the morning. Will call you tomorrow when I’m on the road back. Make sure Jacob studies for his econ test.

  Oh, that’s right. Mike had been in San Diego that day. I had spoken to him around lunchtime. He’d been meeting with bankers on an apartment-complex purchase. When he’d texted me about staying the night, I had wondered, for a flash of a second, whether he’d go out for a late-night drink.

  This was so much worse.

  I stared at the receipt, which proved that he hadn’t been in San Diego at all. He’d been right here in LA. Just twelve miles away, with two different texts showing his thought processes. First—making plans for a late night, wife-free. And then, just after dinner—the decision to stay away all night. Who was she? How had she convinced my husband to spend an entire night with her?

  Or maybe he—my meticulous planner of a husband—had been the instigator, the aggressor, the seducer.

  I gripped the edge of the washing machine and felt my stomach heave. This was, I reminded myself, not the first clue. After all, just earlier this week, in the grocery store, Heather had told me about his trip to Santa Barbara. I had known, then, just like with the clues here and there, that it had probably been another woman, and here was another domino, set in a line, next to the others.

  Nothing to freak out about. My shrink, the one I’d fired after the restraining order was issued, floated through my subconscious, her voice soothing and melodic. Nothing to freak out about, Lillian. Let’s just take a breath. A deep, deep breath.

  The expensive e-book was unnecessary. I knew what this was. It was time for me to stop making excuses and giving him the benefit of the doubt. I had married a cheater, and the chances were, he was lying to me tonight. Working late. He was probably with her now.

  God, my mother could never find out. She’d be giddy at this news. She had never liked Mike and always preached about the impossibility of male monogamy. Maybe, in this one thin section of life, she was right.

  Inside my chest, a sharp pain snaked underneath my breast, and if there was a physical pain associated with heartbreak, this was it.

  I paused beside Jacob, who was hunched over a worksheet full of equations, his pencil tip scratching along the page. Kissing him on the top of the head, I ignored his groan of protest. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Aight.” He flipped over the pencil and erased something.

  I climbed the stairs slowly and trudged down the hall, past Jacob’s room, and entered our bedroom. It was dark and quiet, the red digits of the clock glowing beside Mike’s side of the bed, the dark-blue comforter neatly stretched over the large king, three rows of pillows in neat order.

  I was not a pillow woman. In fact, I hated the tassels and rough surface of the gold embroidered design. Every single time I made the bed, I grew annoyed at the extra, unnecessary action of lining up each row of pillows, just because Mike liked the look, liked the order, liked the preciseness of a well-put-together room. If I left him, I’d switch to feather pillows, big giant fluffy ones that I would leave in disarray, my sheets in a tangled knot, half the blanket hanging on the floor.

  I laughed, and it was a sad sound, drenched in self-pity because while I wanted to be a woman like Taylor Fortwood, this was proof positive that I wouldn’t. This was proof that, in my most rebellious and inspirational fantasies . . . messy bedding was the end result. And not from hot sex, but just from a general laziness to conform to my husband’s exacting standards.

  I took two of Mike’s sleeping pills and crawled under the blanket and curled into a tight ball on my side of the bed.

  The problem was, while I could daydream about undignified bedding and a life of reckless disregard, I couldn’t leave Mike. The idea of divorcing, with Jacob in his junior year, with almost two decades together . . . What did my life look like without Mike? Who was I without him? My identity was rooted in being a wife, a mother, in having his support, his feedback. When I’d tossed out the idea to Sam last summer, I hadn’t actually meant it. It had been a throwaway statement that I would never have acted on.

  Let’s just take a breath, Lillian. A deep, deep breath. My lungs obeyed and my body relaxed as the pills did their thing, and within minutes, I was blissfully dead to it all.

  CHAPTER 10

  LILLIAN

  I woke up with dried drool on my cheek and a kink in my neck. Carefully rolling onto my back, I gauged the light in the room. It had to be midmorning. Nine, maybe even ten. Mike’s side of the bed was unmade, and I wondered what time he had come home. Working late.

  My phone was on the floor, and in last night’s distraction, I’d forgotten to plug it in. I scraped my fingers along the thick rug until I reached it.

  My battery was at 4 percent, and I had a missed text from Jacob at 11:22 last night, wanting to know where we kept double-A batteries. Nothing to give me any indication of what time my husband had returned home. I plugged it in.

  Turning on the shower, I stepped inside and stood under the spray, which was lukewarm and growing hotter. I put my hand against the white subway tiles, remembering the first week in this house, how Mike had put his hand over mine, his chin against the back of my neck, his slick body against mine, the water muting the sounds of my moans as we had christened the space.

  Maybe that was the issue. Our passion was gone, and all the friendship and respect in the world couldn’t make up for that loss. When he looked at me, there was no heat. When we kissed, no life. When we did make love, it was short and rudimentary, a trade-off of orgasms before bed.

  A year ago, I’d given myself a makeover with hair extensions, tighter clothes, and higher heels. I wore low-cut tops and makeup and went to bed in skimpy silk shorts and almost-sheer tank tops. I put in an embarrassing amount of effort, hoping it would restart Mike’s interest.

  It didn’t. I gave it exactly thirty days, then removed my extensions and returned to my flats and makeup-free look. Through it all, Mike had remained a cruise ship, set on autopilot. Plowing forward, undeterred by weather or circumstance.

  I turned my face into the water and held my breath as it beat on my cheeks, lips, and forehead. Lifting my chin, I gulped in a fresh breath, then went back in.

  The book said that I should record any evidence and continue to gather more, building an unquestionable case before I confronted my spouse. Accusing them too early, it said, would cause them to cover their tracks and ruin any chance to uncover more of the truth.

  I didn’t want more of the truth. If anything, I wanted less of it. The idea of waiting and trying to catch Mike in lies sounded agonizing, and I was not a woman built of patience.

  I had to confront him. Otherwise, I’d go mad.

  CHAPTER 11

  LILLIAN

  Mike worked at a financial firm in Pasadena, in a low four-story building surrounded by palm trees. I parked in the visitors’ lot shortly before noon and stared across a grass median at his silver Volvo, which was parked in the Employee of the Month spot.

  I didn’t know he had been named Employee of the Month. The last time that had happened, we’d gone to dinner at one of those hibachi places and celebrated. Jacob had produced a rare laugh when the chef flipped a shrimp into his mouth. Mike did three sake bombs and got drunk, and held my hand when I drove home. It was a sales-based award, one that came with a hefty bonus. We’d used the prior one to pay off his car. What had he used this one for? Was it what had funded the expensive steak dinner? The hotels where he had conducted his trysts? Was he buying her flowers? Gifts?

  I turned the air higher and forced myself to stop thinking. I picked up my phone and sent a text to Mike.

  We need to talk.

  It was a little dramatic, but the situation warranted it. I waited, my attention stuck on the screen. He responded quickly.

  Why?

  Annoyance swelled, and I could already sense how this would unpack. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought this to his work, but I was here and the text was sent, and I couldn’t put it back in the box now.

  He sent another question mark, so I typed back before I lost my nerve and drove away.

  You know why. Come outside. I’m parked in the guest lot.

  Not my most mature and finest moment, and I’d lost the element of surprise, but I was also hoping he would just confess and save me the trouble of a shaky and unresearched accusation.

  My cell phone rang.

  I sent his call to voice mail, then—in a bold and uncharacteristic move—turned off my phone and set it in the cup holder. If he wanted to talk, he could come outside. Screw any meetings. Screw any calls. I was his wife, dammit. Oh God. The tears were already building, leaking out the edges of my eyes.

  I stared at the building. Come on, Mike. This was me, hanging from a ledge, asking him to grab my hand and pull our marriage to safety.

  He could come down three flights of stairs and out to my car, or he could stay inside.

  I gripped the steering wheel tightly.

  Come on, Mike. Save us.

  CHAPTER 12

  LILLIAN

  It took five excruciating minutes. Minutes in which I flip-flopped between an emotional outburst of tears and a sharp fury that dictated I follow my mother’s lead and cut off his balls while he slept.

  I wanted him. I needed him. I didn’t know how to exist, how to function, without him. How could he break up our family?

  I hated him. I was bored with him. I wanted passion and excitement, which were the antithesis of him. Forget him dumping me—I should have left him years ago.

  By the time the front door of the building swung open and Mike walked out, I was teetering on an emotional tightrope and close to falling off. He crossed the lawn slowly, his dark tie held in place by his left hand, his glasses on instead of his contacts. The wind whipped the legs of his charcoal pants, and his pale-blue dress shirt still held the iron creases along his forearms. He met my eyes through the windshield and held them, and I could see the wary uncertainty in his step as he crossed over a low border shrub and approached the passenger side of my car. He opened the door and lowered himself inside, then quietly and carefully closed it.

  A beat of silence lingered. Stretched. My hands were trembling, and I tucked them underneath my thighs to hide the weakness. “Tell me why.”

  He didn’t move, didn’t speak, and his lack of reaction told me everything I needed to know. He was guilty. The only question was how long this had been going on and to what depth his emotional investment extended.

  My chest thickened and I pinned my lips together and prayed he couldn’t see the vulnerability on my face.

  “I don’t have an excuse, Lill. It was just . . .” He paused. “A series of bad decisions.”

  Outside the car, a leaf blew across the lot and stuck to the windshield. “Who is she?”

  At his silence, I twisted in my seat to face him. “Who is she?” I repeated, my voice growing stronger.

  He paused, and I knew this face, this quiet look, his pupils minutely tick-tocking, his breathing quiet and calm. He was thinking, calculating, a dozen thought processes shifting and moving into place behind the scenes. I had seen this process a hundred times, and watching it, I realized my mistake.

  I had shown one of my cards—chosen a question that alerted him to how little I knew. If I didn’t even know who she was, how could I know the extent of his deceit?

  He swallowed against his tightly buttoned collar. “How did you find out?”

  Shit. Could I lie? Could I backtrack and find higher, more confident ground? I searched for another path and failed. “It doesn’t matter,” I snapped. “I know about it all. Santa Barbara. Tuesday night. You aren’t as smart as you think you are.” I blew out an angry breath. “Why? What the fuck—wasn’t I enough?”

  He shook his head. “Stop. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, Lill. It’s just sexual. A mistake. It didn’t mean anything.”

  It’s just sexual. What a stupid and hurtful statement. I balled my hands into fists and hit the steering wheel so hard that my forearms vibrated in pain. “Who is she?” I repeated, my voice rising. “Someone younger? Hotter?” God, I bet she’s waxed. Probably cellulite-free, with no responsibilities and stupid enough to find his OCD tendencies cute.

  “It’s no one you know,” he said quickly. “And she’s our age. Not hotter. She’s just different.” He didn’t say all the things a husband in trouble should say: No one is as hot as you. Lill, you’re beautiful. You’re perfect. Instead, he just sat on the statement, a period of silence at the end of the inadequate sentence.

  “You’re a pig.” The words broke out of my chest with jagged edges, and to my horror, I started to cry.

  “Lill . . .” He reached for my hand and I moved it away. He twisted in his seat, facing me. “I’ll stop it. Right now. Immediately. I promise.”

  I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t making an excuse, that there wasn’t an explanation. In the book, they said that the cheater’s first instinct was to lie, to cover their tracks, but he was just rolling over and admitting to it all.

  “Look.” He captured my hand and squeezed. “I’ll stop it. It’s done.”

  “You should have stopped it on your own.” I yanked free. “I should have never found out about it.” Wouldn’t that have been better? Blissful ignorance. It was sad, but that was all I wanted. To have never noticed anything, to have a husband who had stayed attentive, stayed around, and conducted this fling without me ever growing the wiser. “You were sloppy, Mike. You’ve ignored me.” My anger grew and its focus on his careless cover-up didn’t make sense, but it was still there and raw and bubbling out around each word. “I loved you,” I spat. “I still love you.”

  “Oh, Lill,” he said sadly, and his features broke in a way that I hadn’t seen since my miscarriage. “I’ll always love you. This was nothing, I promise. It was me being selfish. And it’s over. Please, please believe me when I tell you that it’s over. I’ll end it today. Right away.”

  He cupped my face and stared into my eyes, and my heart sagged in relief and resignation because that was all I wanted to hear. “Jacob—” I said weakly.

  “I’m your husband and his father, and I swear to you that I’ll do a better job of both,” he said firmly. “Okay?”

  I nodded. What other option did I have? He was a husband and a father, and I was a wife and a mother, and the two roles were intertwined and my life had no other substance.

  I flinched at the thought. Was it true? Without my marriage and my motherhood, I had nothing else? My job . . . There was that, however bleak last year’s demotion was. My Twitter account . . . God, I couldn’t look for purpose in a social media profile.

  Was the bulk of my existence, my happiness, balancing on him?

  I looked at him in horror and flinched as he smiled, his thumb smearing a falling tear across my cheekbone. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Look at me. I promise that I’m yours. All yours. I won’t fuck up again.”

  I had to change this life. I had to find a better, braver, more independent me before he chewed this version into pieces.

  CHAPTER 13

  MIKE

  I wasn’t lying to her. Sacrifices needed to be made, given whatever she’d discovered. She apparently hadn’t found much out, since she didn’t even know who I’d been with. But enough risk was already present. She knew about Santa Barbara and Tuesday night. Just those two puzzle pieces could unravel everything, if someone wanted to dig deeper.

  Thankfully, my wife wasn’t a digger. She was a bare-minimum type, one who took the easy road, so I’d give that to her. A big, wide, beautiful road called Happy Married Life. I’d be the perfect husband. Loyal. Trustworthy. I’d grovel and court, and do all the things necessary to distract her from “the affair” and remind her of our love and family.

  She didn’t have other options, so she’d fall back into place. There would be some bitchiness, some punishment, some frigid shoulders and sharp words, but Lillian was a creature of habit and comfort, and the alternative—a forty-year-old divorcée—was not a path she’d want to tread.

  But yes, sacrifices would need to be made, which was why I returned to the office, picked up the phone, and made the call. I kept it brief and unemotional.

  I ended it.

  So there. That was done.

  CHAPTER 14

  LILLIAN

  @themysteryofdeath: A scooter pulls out in front of a truck driver on a quiet island paradise, in sight of a Yorkie-walking teenage girl. Within seconds, the lives of all three will change. Who will die?

  I scrubbed burned cheese off an oven grate and stared at David Laurent’s card, which was propped in front of the sink, against the pale-blue glossy backsplash. I should call him. We could grab lunch. I could slip into Taylor’s world, pretend that I was just back from a calendar-buying trip to Florida, and tell him that story about how she—I—hitched a ride through the Everglades on a park ranger’s airboat when her—my—car ran out of gas. Maybe I’d wear that low-cut top that Mike had ignored. I could spend an hour flirting and laughing my way out of heartbreak.

  All it would be was a lunch. It didn’t have to be anything more.

  I picked up my phone and scrolled through the Twitter responses.

  @greengoblin: scooter rider. obviously.