I stood in my own entryway and watched my husband list his grievances against a grieving old woman he had just struck, and I did not recognize a single thing about him.

Chapter 3 — The Man at the Station

The strange thing — the thing I kept snagging on, even in that moment — was that this was the same man who, three months earlier, had driven to the Amtrak station to pick her up.

When my father died and my mother sold the little suburban house where they’d built forty years of a life, and it was decided she would come live with us for a while, Brandon had been the one to insist he’d get her from the train himself.

I could still see it: Brandon on the platform, taking her bags, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, walking her to the car.