“Yes,” I said.

“I’d like that.”

For years, the future had meant finding a way to keep our marriage intact.

Now it looked unfamiliar, even frightening.

But it contained coffee with a friend and breakfast I had chosen.

I began to understand that rebuilding a life might happen through details too small to appear in anybody else’s story.

PART 11 — The Other Woman’s Voice

Brenda called me two days later.