He discussed having his wife declared insane in exactly the tone he used to discuss a quarterly projection — a problem to be solved, a variable to be managed, we control everything. That flatness was the most frightening thing I have ever heard, and I made myself listen to it twice, standing alone in that underground room, because I needed to be absolutely certain that the part of me still hoping for the young man with the cheap coffee understood what it was hoping for.

It understood.

The young man was gone, if he had ever really existed.

What remained was a man who could say psychologically unfit about the woman he’d married in the same voice he’d use to order lunch, and I let that voice kill the last of my hope cleanly, because I was going to need to be entirely free of hope to do what I was about to do.

Chapter 10 — Not Just Infidelity

The infidelity had been painful.