“Why did you tell her about me?” Bianca was saying, in a soft, wounded, little-girl whine.

“Now she’s going to hate me.”

Spencer laughed — a low, easy laugh I had not heard him make with me in years.

“As long as I’m here, nobody is going to touch you.” A pause.

“Come over early tomorrow.

I want a breakfast you made.”

I stood frozen in the dark hallway with my empty glass, listening to my husband order breakfast from another woman in my own house.

I want to describe what that laugh did to me, because it was worse than any of the words.