“Maybe you didn’t give a shit,” she said. “I don’t know who you think of anymore, Steve, but it certainly isn’t me and it certainly isn’t Wendy.”

“I love my daughter,” he said vehemently, taking an aggressive step toward her.

The omission of her name from that sentiment cut Sara like a knife. She wouldn’t have believed she had any illusions left about their relationship, but it still hurt.

“Then why do you do these things, Steve?” she asked. “Wendy isn’t stupid. She knows when you don’t come home at night. She knows what that means. An eleven-year-old girl shouldn’t feel compelled to come to her mother and tell her she knows all about affairs, and why does her father have to do that?”

“And I’m sure you haven’t tried to tell her otherwise,” he snapped.

“Why would I? I’m supposed to lie for you? I’m supposed to lie for you and look like a fool to my daughter? I’m not stupid, either. You think I don’t know that you weren’t in Sacramento last weekend? Did you think I wouldn’t check up on you when you’ve done this to me time and time again over the last year and a half?”

“Where do you think I was?” he asked, challenging her.

Sara refused the bait, careful with her answer. “I don’t know where you were.”

“Really, where do you think I was?” It was a taunt more than a question. He moved back and forth in front of her like a shark in a tank. “Do you think I was with Marissa?”

Sara said nothing, but caught herself taking a step back from him.

“You think I was having an affair with her, don’t you?” he said. “That’s why you were suddenly so interested in her, wanting to be friends with her, hanging out with her. Did you think she would just tell you? Did you think she would just turn to you one day and say, ‘Oh, by the way, Sara, I’m fucking your husband’?”

“Stop it,” she said quietly, her voice trembling with anger and something she didn’t want to call fear. He continued his pacing, back and forth, back and forth, inching in on her with each turn. She took another step back toward the bookcase built into the wall behind her. With his battered face he looked monstrous and aggressive.

“That’s what you believe,” he said. “Just like you believed I was having an affair with Lisa Warwick. Why don’t you want to hear it?”

She didn’t say anything. She wanted this conversation to be over and for him to just leave.

“Really, Sara,” he pushed, coming toward her, in her face. She tried to take another step back and couldn’t. Something like satisfaction flashed in his eyes.