My hands began to tremble.
Then came the final message.
“YES, I’M THE WOMAN DESTROYING YOUR FORTY-TWO-YEAR MARRIAGE, AND I’M NOT GOING TO APOLOGIZE! YOUR TIME IS OVER. HE’S MINE NOW!”
I sat down so abruptly that the chair scraped against the kitchen floor.
The toast began to burn.
Smoke curled from the pan, but I couldn’t move.
Forty-two years.
Forty-two Christmas mornings, anniversaries, family vacations, arguments, reconciliations, and whispered promises.
Forty-two years of believing that even when life became difficult, we were still on the same side.
And a woman I had never met was telling me that my life with my husband was finished.
I read the messages again.
Then I did something that surprised even me.
I didn’t call Robert.
I didn’t call our children.
I didn’t scream or throw anything across the kitchen.
I placed the phone on the table and stared out the window at the small garden I had tended for more than thirty years.
