After a public scene, no one on the board will take her side.” And then my husband’s voice, answering: “We make her look unstable.

If she loses control in front of the whole family, we can argue she’s unfit — unfit to hold her board votes, unfit for custody.” I sat very still while it played. Use the boy. My mother-in-law had said use the boy about my son, her own grandson, and my husband had planned to strip me of my child by provoking me into a scene.

The affair had been a betrayal.

This was something else.