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.

I told him. “What?”

“You need to go.” He protested, “This is my house too.”

“And tonight I don’t care.” He reminded me “Claire, it’s almost eight.” and I replied, “Then you’ll have no trouble finding a hotel.” I thought of eleven years spent making his home life comfortable: fresh sheets, shopping, remembering his mother’s birthday, retrieving dry cleaning, sitting beside him in emergency departments, patiently listening to office complaints about people whose names I’d forgotten. I couldn’t perform one more act of care on command.

“Go,” I said. He