But tomorrow, I knew, I would have to decide what to do with all of it.
The marriage.
The lie.
The seven months.
The woman named Daniela who had given my son a spot in her living room and learned his favorite stuffed animal while I was sending emails and sitting in meetings and reading 3:15 texts and feeling grateful.
I would have to decide all of it.
Just not tonight.
Tonight I had pasta to finish and a bath to run and a book to read and a small boy who needed his mother to be present and steady and there.
I could do that much.
I had always been able to do that much.
My phone lit up again.
This time it was a number I didn’t recognize.
I let it ring.
Toby was still eating.
I watched the screen until it went dark, then turned back to my plate.
It rang again thirty seconds later.
Same number.
“Mom, your phone keeps going,” Toby said.
“I know, bud.
Eat your dinner.”
The third time, I picked it up and walked to the hallway.
“Hello?”
“Is this Lauren?” A woman’s voice.
Not Daniela.
Older.
Clipped.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Carol.
