Perhaps, in the weak and hoping way of a person who has built a life around someone, I would have tried to forgive him and stay.

A private betrayal leaves a wife free to be as foolish or as gentle as her own damaged heart requires; the only person she answers to is herself.

But he had not kept it private.

He had funded his second life out of my father’s company, out of the wages and pensions and bonuses of people who came to work every day trusting the name over the door.

He had cut a warehouse worker’s holiday bonus and used the savings, in effect, to pay for his mistress’s car.