She looked like someone who had run out of strength.
I took the broom from the cupboard.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?”
“Clean up after me.”
I glanced at the broken glass.
“I’m cleaning up the glass, not your life.”
She looked down at her bare feet.
“Oh.”
I swept the fragments into a dustpan, wiped the floor, and sat across from her.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then she whispered, “I feel stupid.”
“You aren’t.”
“I trusted him.”
“That doesn’t make you stupid.”
“What if I should have known?”
“What if he worked very hard to make sure you didn’t?”
She looked up.
I continued.
“Someone who lies for four years doesn’t get to blame the person who believed him.”
Her eyes filled.
“I don’t know how to start over.”
“You don’t have to figure it all out tonight.”
She leaned toward me.
I opened my arms, and she rested her head against my chest.
