Then something behind the eyes, a flicker of calculation replacing the practiced ease.

He wasn’t grieving the marriage.

He was recalculating the board.

I’d expected that, honestly.

What I hadn’t expected was how fast he’d reach for the one piece he thought I couldn’t afford to lose.

I was in the kitchen unpacking groceries — the ordinary, stubborn business of a Tuesday, milk and bread and a rotisserie chicken, because life doesn’t pause to let you fall apart with dignity.

Through the doorway I could see the living room, and I could see him lower himself onto the arm of the couch beside our oldest daughter, close, confiding, the way you’d sit next to someone you were about to ask for a very large favor.

Willa was fifteen.

She was on her laptop, half a headphone in one ear, and she looked up at him with the particular wariness teenagers develop when a parent gets suddenly, suspiciously warm.

My hands went still around a carton of eggs.

I didn’t move.

I wanted to hear exactly what he thought he was going to do.

Chapter 2 — A Nice Bedroom

“Willa,” he said, and his voice had gone soft in a way I’d learned to distrust years ago, “you know your mom and I might be living in different houses soon.”