The man who wanted to speak with me directly, to talk things through, was not the man I had married.

Or rather, he was, and that was exactly the problem.

Because the person I had thought I married, the devoted husband, the loving father, the hardworking provider, had never actually existed; he had been a performance, a role Julian played for me and for our families while his real self lived a separate life in hotel rooms downtown.

And when the performance ended, when the recording played and the folders came out and the truth stood undeniable in my dining room, what was left was not my husband with a flaw.

What was left was a stranger I had never actually known, wearing the face of the man I had loved.