“Oh,” she said, fisting her hands at her sides anxiously. Talk. Discuss. Dissolve. No. She pointed at the book in front of him to distract him. “What are you looking at?”

“Our senior-high yearbook,” he said, and her heart sank. What could have been. She had his office at home decorated with his old football photos and trophies. She even had his old jersey framed. It was a time he could be proud of, when anything was possible.

A time she took away from him.

The bags and packages left on the floor, she walked to the couch and sat beside him, gently, cautiously, afraid that if she moved too fast he would bolt. The yearbook was turned to a two-page layout of candid photos. Sydney and Emma and Hunter John were in nearly all of them. There they were in the Dome, the covered picnic area outside the cafeteria where they would sometimes sneak puffs of cigarettes. There they were on the senior bench in the rotunda, an exclusive seating area claimed by the most popular in school. Hamming it up in front of the camera at their lockers. Celebrating at the homecoming game that year when Hunter John threw the winning pass.

“I was in love with Sydney,” Hunter John said, and Emma felt strangely satisfied. Or maybe justified. He was admitting it. He was admitting that she was the problem. But then he continued, “As much as a teenager can feel love. It felt real to me at the time. I look at these photos, and in every single one of them, I’m staring at her. But then I see you, and in every single one, you’re staring at her too. I forgot about her a long time ago, Emma. But you didn’t forget, did you? Has Sydney been in this marriage for ten years without my knowing it?”

Emma stared at the images, trying not to cry. She was ugly when she cried. Her nose swelled and her mascara ran like river water. “I don’t know. I just know that I’ve always wondered, if you had to do it all over again, would you still do it? Would you still choose me?”

“Is that what this is all about? You’ve been trying so hard, the sex, the perfect house, because you thought I didn’t want to be here?”

“I’ve tried so hard because I love you!” she said desperately. “But I took away your choices! I made you stay home instead of going off to college. You had children instead of spending a year in Europe. There’s always been a part of me that thought I ruined everything for you because I hated Sydney so much, because I hated that you loved her and not me. I hated it so much I had to go and seduce you. And I ruined all your plans. I’ve been trying to make it up to you every day since.”