That was the first text.

If he had stopped there, I might have spent a year agonizing over where the marriage went wrong, drowning in the misplaced guilt of a woman who had been quietly told for years that everything was her fault.

I might have wondered whether I had pushed his mother too far.

But Ian had always been careless.

He acted on impulse a half-second before his mind caught up — and that flaw had just handed me everything.

Chapter 3 — The Second Text