PART 1 — “DON’T REACT”

I was Christmas shopping with my mother-in-law when I saw my husband holding another woman’s hand in the middle of a crowded Chicago mall.

Jonathan was maybe twenty yards away.

Charcoal cashmere coat.

The one I had bought him for his birthday a month earlier.

He was laughing.

Not his polite business laugh.

Not the tight smile he used with clients.

The real one.

The one that made his eyes crease at the corners.

A woman I had never seen before stood pressed against his shoulder with both hands wrapped around his arm.

My shopping bag slipped from my fingers.

Eleanor caught my wrist before I could move.

“Don’t react, Clara.”

Her voice barely rose above the Christmas music.

I turned toward her.

“You see them?”

“I see them.”

She bent down, picked up my bag, and placed the handles back into my hand.