I drove home that evening.
The house was exactly as I had left it.
Quiet.
Empty.
Carol’s chair was still in the kitchen.
Her coffee mug was still sitting on the shelf.
For the first time since her death, I walked into our bedroom without feeling like I was entering a grave.
I opened her closet.
I touched one of her dresses.
Then I sat on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you yet,” I whispered.
The room was silent.
“But I know I loved you.”
I cried for a long time.
Not because I wanted to erase what she had done.
Not because I wanted to pretend it didn’t matter.
I cried because two truths could exist at the same time.
Carol had hurt me.
And Carol had loved me.
She had made a terrible choice.
And she had spent thirty-six years trying, in her own imperfect way, to be a good wife.
