The Standing She Did Not Know She Had

The restaurant receipt I’d found in his coat.

The calls he took in the driveway.

The way Nerissa looked away from me at the holiday dinner.

I had gathered every small wrong piece and simply refused to assemble the picture, because the picture was more than I could stand to see.

Lying there, I let myself assemble it at last, and it was almost worse to see how complete it was.

This was not a man who had strayed and been overtaken.