I’d worked so hard to make our home a lovely place, and even harder raising our girls. If Sadie and I rubbed each other the wrong way sometimes, it didn’t matter too much. They were fine girls. Good people. Juliet designed those amazing buildings, and Sadie taught little children to appreciate art. There was so much to be proud of.

But it had always been me who did the work. John was the provider, and I made it so he didn’t have to lift a finger around the house. He liked it that way. Who wouldn’t?

But when it came to the marriage, the nuts and bolts of it, the conversing, the staying close, the intimacy and the social life, I felt it should’ve been more mutual. He had done nothing. Those dance lessons, going to the annual scholarship auction, the bird-watching club, the bowling league . . . none of those things had been his idea. Women were responsible for what the couple did. It wasn’t fair, but it was true. John agreed to do this and that, but he never suggested a damn thing.

Then, being turned down for a little love, some affection, well, that stung. Before I’d thrown up my hands regarding sex, his absentminded professor bit had hurt when he failed to notice a filmy nightgown or the fact that I’d sprayed the pillowcases with perfume, moisturized my skin like it was religion. I’d been a nice-looking woman. Still was. John, he had to be reminded to take a shower, for Pete’s sake! He’d go for days without shaving, looking like a bum. That potbelly, his drooping man-breasts. He didn’t care if I found him attractive. But WORK . . . oh, she inspired him to do a triathlon!

I had wondered about his sudden interest in the gym last fall. About those new clothes he’d bought with Sadie on one of his visits to the city—shirts with floral prints, like something a girl would wear, and pants that stopped an inch above his anklebone. He’d even taken to wearing a little porkpie hat, and I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes, he looked so dang ridiculous. He wasn’t fooling anyone. He wasn’t from Brooklyn, and he wasn’t thirty years old.

But apparently, WORK found him just amazing.

A flash of hatred hit me like lightning. For him and WORK both.

“Okay, here goes,” I said, sitting up abruptly. I took the phone and started texting. “‘My darling, so so SO’—all caps—‘sorry to not be able to answer you,’ exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. ‘Family crisis going on here. Miss you and love you too. Will be in touch very soon. Longing to see you,’ exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.” I looked at Caro. “How do you get those little happy faces and hearts?”