“Linda, time is running out for you,” I say as I lead her from the kitchen to the front door. She’s scanning the room, looking for anything that will bolster Frank’s claims, but there isn’t more to see. I have purged the living room of all things Sophie.

“Linda,” I say, “don’t come back.”

“I’m just doing my job, Adam.”

“And don’t use my first name as though we are friends.”

“You use mine,” she says in a weird tit for tat.

“Good-bye, Linda,” I tell her. “Thanks for making the worst thing that has ever happened to me and my daughter even more painful by regurgitating lies in the guise of phony concern for the truth. I can’t wait until you’re shitcanned right out of the newsroom.”

There had been a love affair.

But I wasn’t the one who had it.

I look at my watch, a gift from Sophie that I’ve decided to keep. Aubrey and Katrina are at the park and won’t be back for an hour or so. I head down the hall to our bedroom. My bedroom now. I swing open the closet and start putting all of Sophie’s clothes on the unmade bed. I smell her. I remember the last time she wore that dress. That jacket. I feel her all around me. When I’m finished, I go to the kitchen and get the box of garbage bags that I’d set on the counter before Linda London arrived. I don’t want to live with any reminders. I’m so angry with my dead wife. Everything that belonged to her, in fact, is headed for Goodwill. I had considered pitching it all in the dumpster behind a gas station on the way to work. But I couldn’t do that to her. That would be too cold. And as mad as I am, I’m not a bad guy.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

KRISTEN

Connor is a total, certifiable wreck. My heart goes out to him. It really does. No matter our ups and downs, there has always been something about my husband that—and I’m loath to use this particular phrase—has brought out the mother in me. Ugh, I think now. Connor is not weak, but it’s a fact he’s more fragile than I am. It’s the way things worked out. I get to be the strong one. The breadwinner. The one who does the finances. Not because he’s not man enough to do those things; it’s just that, well, that’s who I am.

I pour him a drink, because it’s the only thing that I think will calm him. I do this knowing that it’s completely wrong.

“You’re shaking,” I say.