Snap out of it, she told herself. You have a lovely marriage. (Which reminded her, she should have sex with Oliver tonight, because it had been almost a week and he got grumpy if he went too long. He’d been so wonderful about Dad and deserved some attention.) You have two healthy children. (Who haven’t had a full week of school since mid-September; honest to God, who sets these school calendars?) You love your job. (Even if your star is sinking, you feel helpless and you’re having panic attacks in your closet.) You were raised by parents who love you. (Take the girls to see Dad, and try to get Brianna not to sob when she sees him, and also check in with Mom and see how she is, because there’s something she’s not telling you.)

That smoke-jumping job looked awfully great right about now. The mountains. A cabin. A good dog. Lots of books and a woodstove, and no one around who needed anything.

Juliet felt like crying. Like crying and eating an entire box full of Dunkin’ Donuts Boston Kremes.

If she’d known how hard it was to have it all, she would’ve asked for less.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Barb

John had come home, and I wasn’t feeling real thrilled.

Oh, go on, now. He’d been cheating on me for God knows how long with some floozy, and now he needed a full-time caregiver, and guess who won that prize?

The six weeks without him had been hard, of course—I visited him almost every day while still handling the myriad duties of first selectman, from going to the Winter Concert at the elementary school to commissioning a summer traffic study to getting more money for the library budget, because what was a town without a decent library?

But on those nights when I got home from Gaylord, which took a solid hour and fifteen minutes, or on those even better nights when I just couldn’t find the energy to go, I’d pour myself a glass of wine and make a sandwich. Watch Broadchurch on Netflix—gosh, what a show!—or see if Caro wanted to come over and visit. In the mornings, I got up at seven; John liked to get up at five so he could go to the gym (and now I knew why), so the extra sleep was bliss. I’d make my coffee (I liked it stronger than John did, and always had to dump out his weak brew and wash the pot out, because God forbid he did that himself). I made oatmeal, one of the rare dishes from my childhood I had loved. John hated oatmeal. Said it gave him the dry heaves just looking at it.

I hadn’t realized how much room he took up. How much space he demanded.