I inhale, hard, and my fingers tangle in her blond curls. Her hair is so silky, baby fine, like the baby she still is. “It won’t always be this difficult.” I manage to get the words out without my own voice cracking. “It’ll get easier, Jess, I promise.”

She shakes her head, pulling away from my touch. “No, it won’t. Not if you and Daddy stay divorced.”

I just look at her.

“Why do you have to be divorced? Why can’t you and Daddy get back together? Why can’t you just stop fighting and be a family again?”

“I wish we could—”

“Then do it!” she screams at me, her eyes liquid blue. “Do it now. Do it for me!”

I lift her off the carpet, and despite her brief, initial struggle, I pull her into my arms, where she curls against me, her wet face buried against my chest. In my arms she just sobs, and my heart breaks yet again. My heart, once so sure of itself, is as shattered as my children’s.

Life is never what one thinks it’s going to be.

I rock Jessica in my arms. “Daddy and I can’t get together again, but it’s going to be better soon. It’s going to be better, I promise.”

I drive to the airport so torn. I nearly cried as I dropped the kids off at Daniel’s. Jessica clung to me in tears, and William stood stoically at his dad’s side after giving me a grown-up hug good-bye. I hate good-byes, especially good-byes with my children.

As I park at the terminal, I know that Jessica is right. If Daniel and I were still together, none of this would be happening. I’d be with him and the children. I’d be making dinner tonight for my kids, sipping a glass of wine in my Palm Springs kitchen as Daniel and the kids floated in the pool outside.

I don’t know if Daniel fell in love with another woman or if he just fell out of love with me, but we definitely grew apart—not outwardly, at least not the way one would think, because our friends were all hugely surprised when we announced we’d separated and were planning to file for divorce.

No one seemed to understand how we could take such a drastic step, especially as we both had been such good, devoted parents and clearly loved our children.

We do love our children.

We will always love our children. But we couldn’t seem to do it together anymore, not in the same house, not sitting in the same room, when our anger and fights became routine behavior. We didn’t talk—we argued. We didn’t disagree—we exploded.

Daniel missed the woman he thought he’d married, and I missed the man who thought I’d been beautiful, clever, wonderful.