Emily hailed a cab and got inside. She felt shocked by what she’d done, and guilty. Even though it was two o’clock in the morning, she called Ezra. She couldn’t wait for him anymore. She needed him. She needed to talk to him. She needed not to go looking for love somewhere else. She was still hurting from the miscarriage—mentally and physically—and she needed him. She needed him to care for her like he used to. He didn’t pick up, but she wasn’t surprised. He was probably sleeping after his double call. He often turned his phone off when he could, when he knew the hospital wouldn’t be calling him. She left a message. “Can you please come home?” she said, her voice thick with tears. “I miss you. I love you. I choose you. I want you to choose me.”

Then she got out at their building and walked inside alone, her phone in her hand, waiting for him to wake up, hoping it would be soon.

Instead of going to bed, Emily went back into the second bedroom and rummaged through a box of her old notebooks to find her journal. The one she’d started years before at the recommendation of Dr. West, a way to tell her story, process it as she explained it to someone else. She hadn’t written in it for years. Not since right after she’d gotten married to Ezra.

When she found the notebook, leather-bound and navy blue with gold on the edges of the pages, she brought it, along with a pen, to the couch in the living room. Instead of reading it over, which she used to do sometimes—when she needed grounding, when she needed reminding of who she was—she opened it to the next blank page and flattened it in front of her.

I want to feel whole again, she wrote. And then looked at the words. What did that even mean? I want to feel loved again.

Her phone vibrated and she looked at the screen, expecting Ezra. But instead there was a text from Tessa. For a moment, Emily couldn’t remember how in the world Tessa had gotten her number, but then recalled the lunchtime of babysitting, which seemed forever ago now. A sense of dread filled her. There was no good reason that Tessa would text her in the middle of the night.

She clicked open the notification and read: I don’t know who else to reach out to. I need help. Are you there?

Emily wasn’t usually up at 2:27 in the morning, but today she was. She was there.

Yes, she wrote back, What’s wrong?

Emily’s heart raced. She was worried about Tessa. Worried that she didn’t feel she had anyone else. Where was Chris? Where were her friends? Her family?