I told Bev first, because you tell Bev everything, and because I needed to say the shameful thing out loud to someone before I could say it to Hal.

Bev has been my closest friend for thirty years, and she lost her own husband, Ray, four years ago, fast, a stroke, and she has spent those four years being both the loneliest and the wisest person I know.

We were having our Thursday coffee when I said it, the thing I had never said aloud to anyone: “Bev, I think I’m lonely in my marriage.

I think I have been for years.