“Is Dad in trouble, then?” he asked, glancing anxiously at the closed bedroom door as though he expected his father to come bursting through it.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm the wild anger racing through my veins before I answered my innocent boy.

“Your dad and I have some very serious things to work out between us, but you haven’t done anything wrong in this house,” I told him firmly.

He climbed onto the bed beside me, pulled his knees up to his chest and stared down at his sneakers for a long, silent minute.

“I heard them talking really late one night while you were asleep upstairs after the babies were born, Mom,” he whispered into the quiet room.