Having gone this far, I know I need to finish the journey, but I’m frozen in place. I realize the living room might not have been the best venue for this discussion, as it places me twenty feet away from the front door. Stuart could easily get there before me. As I imagine being brutally murdered by my husband, Stuart waits patiently for me to tell him what I’m struggling with. Most likely so that after I tell him, he can provide the solution to this conundrum that has eluded me.

“I have to assume that you never expected that Lauren wouldn’t have brought her phone to the park. Please tell me that’s what happened. It would be too much for me to bear that you wanted me to be punished this severely for having an affair. I guess what I’m saying is that I understand why you killed Lauren, but I’m just asking you to tell me that you didn’t also intend to frame me for her murder.”

My husband, the man with whom I share a child and have built a life, doesn’t respond. At least thirty seconds pass in silence, which feels like an eternity.

I reflexively look to the kitchen, the most likely place for him to grab a weapon. But rather than get up, he scoots closer to me, until our thighs are touching.

“I swear on Jacob’s life that I didn’t want you to be blamed for this,” he says. “I looked for her phone so I could take it with me. And when I realized the phone wasn’t there . . . I threw the gun away near their house. My hope was that Richard would take the blame, not you. I killed her precisely because I couldn’t fathom life without you. That means that the very last thing I’d ever want in this world is for you to go to jail. How could you even think that I’d want that?”

He’s begun to cry. At first slowly, and then a rush of sobbing. I’m not completely certain, but I think the cause of his anguish is not that he murdered Lauren but that I’ve questioned his love for me. His head is pushed against my arm, but I can’t summon the will to comfort him with an embrace.

He straightens up and wipes his eyes. He’s staring at me. I feel myself welling up too.