My husband sent another woman a huge bouquet of white roses and pink peonies with a card signed “Love, Daniel,” and by one careless mistake, those flowers arrived at our house instead.

she was somehow preferable to me. Laura wasn’t the question. Daniel was.

I set the flowers and card on the living-room coffee table to await him. At 5:42 he texted: Running a little late. Don’t wait for dinner. Hundreds of similar messages had arrived that year: meetings, client calls, team dinners, traffic, conference preparations. By 6:31 I heard the garage door and my heart raced. I’d rehearsed screaming, throwing the flowers, even receiving an immediate confession. Instead I was frighteningly calm when he walked in.

He greeted me