I slid my hand into the small of her back, drew her to me. She rubbed her cheek against mine, then half stepped away. I caught the scent of mint on her breath. Alcohol too, though she had done what she could to disguise it. She stepped backward, half sat on the table.

“How was your session today?” I asked.

“Actually weirdly great.” She nodded, as if remembering some detail. “Yes. Today was definitely a breakthrough day.”

I looked at my wife, trying to find the lie.

Elsa looked levelly at me, smiling. “Why don’t you fix us a drink?”

“To celebrate your breakthrough?”

“Sure . . .”

If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn she was telling me the truth.

I went to the freezer, set the gin and the shaker on the worktop. A thought stopped me. I turned to Elsa.

“Would you fetch me some ice?” I said.

“We out?”

“So it seems.”

She padded out into the hall. I heard the front door open, heard it swing shut behind her. I turned her phone over. A message from a man named Sverre. Billing her for missing today’s session.

A strange, vertiginous moment, catching Elsa in a lie like that. The end of something, I thought. When the foundation of our relationship was truth . . .

I bit back my anger, tried to push all thought from my mind. I replaced Elsa’s phone on the worktop, facedown. I began cutting peel and decanting olive brine. When Elsa returned with a large bag of ice, I had two martinis standing on the counter, ready to drink.

She frowned. “I thought we were out of ice.”

“I checked again. We weren’t. What was your breakthrough, by the way?”

“It’s not supposed to leave the therapy room.”

“Huh.”

I handed Elsa her drink. My wife, who cannot tell a lie.

“What?” she said.

I said, “Okay, look. I understand that you may have emotional needs I can’t meet. And we are in the middle of something truly terrible. So if there’s something I need to know, then please tell me.”

“What do you mean?” she said lightly.

“I mean, in times of stress people turn to other people. People who make them feel understood. People more like them. Often someone from their own culture.”

“Is this your way of asking, would I be happier with a Norwegian man?”

“Would you?”

“Mostly no.” She smiled. “It would make some things easier, of course. Fewer misunderstandings, for sure.”

We were standing very close now. Her pupils were large. The flecks in her gray-blue eyes danced silver and gold. No trace of guilt.

“Where are you going with this, Cal?”

“I mean, marriages survive affairs. If the foundation of the marriage is strong enough.”

She laughed.

She smiled.

She shook her head.