And then I did something I’d been quietly planning for a week without admitting it to myself.

I slid the phone open, worked the little SIM card out with my thumbnail, and dropped it into a trash bin by the terminal doors on my way out into the sun.

New state, new number, new everything.

Let the begging go to a line that no longer existed.

He’d traded sixteen years of a real marriage, and three daughters who were better than he deserved, for a gold medal that turned out to be painted tin — a prize in a contest that had been rigged against him from the start by the one person he’d chosen over us.

He would spend a long time alone in a very large house learning what that cost.