“Except you can’t put the toothpaste back into the tube. Do you honestly think, even if you could somehow go back, you would ever unsee those photos?”

“No,” she said, sighing. “And I don’t really want to go back. I just really miss that false sense of security I was drifting around in. It was comforting and familiar, and he always knew what to do when the toilet leaked or the internet went down. I hate figuring out that stuff on my own.”

“Hire a good handyman,” Eric said. “Speaking of the divorce, did you guys settle on a number?”

“I suggested three million, and he agreed.” She had figured one million dollars for each of the three amazing, wonderful, loving children she got out of him.

“He agreed? Okay, I’m stunned, and you were right.”

When Eric had first learned about the inheritance from Clare, so soon after learning that Eileen knew about Lauren, he had insisted that he wouldn’t try to take any of that money in the divorce. Simon didn’t think that would last. “Come on, Eileen, be serious. Do you honestly think he won’t try to come for half? How good is this lawyer you’ve hired?”

To be honest, she didn’t really know herself if Eric would change his mind once some of his guilt wore off. She felt like it was probable, given his long affair with Lauren, that she didn’t know her husband as well as she thought she did.

But he never asked her for a dime. It was only last month that she had decided she actually wanted to give him something. Not half, no. But enough money to be generous and fair, and to indicate she didn’t actually hate his guts. He was always going to be the father of her children.

“I’m just happy that we’re getting closer to winding the whole mess up. I think it will be a relief when it’s finally all said and done.”

And heartbreaking. She knew signing those papers was going to open the wound back up.

Paige was heading across the field toward her, sweaty and smiling, arms linked with two other girls from her team, their huge soccer bags bouncing on their backs.

“That was a great game, huh?” someone suddenly said next to her.

“Yes,” Eileen said as she turned toward the voice on her left. She sucked her breath at the sight of him. “Oh, God,” she breathed. It was Samuel Cramer, witness to her husband’s sex pictures and her drunken rock-bottom behavior in the San Francisco airport and receiver of a misdial outside her mother’s care facility.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.” Samuel gave her a huge smile.

“Ah, nothing.” She waved her hand. “I only meant to say, yes, it was a great game.”