“My husband who I loved more than anything on this earth, save my children, had an affair with a nurse at his hospital, put an engagement ring on her finger before he asked me for a divorce, and married her only days after we signed the papers,” I said to the mirror, my eyes on my eyes, something I’d thought when I was younger was my best feature.

Something that was my best feature again.

Finally.

“Oh shit,” Alyssa muttered.

I felt Josie lean into me.

I didn’t take my eyes from me.

“I lost it. Completely,” I stated. “I went absolutely insane and made them both pay for this betrayal at every opportunity. My kids saw it. It was unhealthy. They didn’t like it. It went on for years and got so bad my ex had to move across the country to escape me. He got a judge to award him my kids. They’re all here and I followed them to heal my family. My husband welcomed me to Magdalene by showing at my new house, shouting it down and threatening me. And last weekend, my children made it clear they hated me.”

“Amelia,” Josie whispered.

Alyssa sat down in the salon chair on my other side and grabbed my hand.

I looked between them and then back at the mirror.

“I messed up,” I whispered my admission.

Neither of them said anything.

“I kept doing it,” I went on.

They stayed silent.

“And now I’m trying with everything I have to fix what I broke but I’m afraid I’m going to fail because they’ve completely lost faith in me.”

My new friends remained quiet.

“I miss my family.” It came out almost like a whimper.

“Of course you do,” Alyssa said on a hand squeeze.

I kept going, “And I messed things up.”

“Of course you did not,” Alyssa declared, startling me, and I looked her way.

“I’m sorry?”

“So I take it you went batshit crazy when your husband left you,” she noted.

“Yes,” I confirmed humiliatingly.

“And those two, him and his new woman, don’t deserve that…how?” she asked.

I stared.

“Shit happens, babe,” she continued. “Marriages disintegrate for a lot of reasons. And you’re sittin’ in a chair that’s seen a lot of ugly tales told and those include women losin’ their men because those men fell outta love and into love with someone else. I don’t live those feelings so I can’t say if it’s okay or not for that shit to happen. What I can say is that it’s not okay for it to happen while anyone is still wearin’ a wedding band.”

“She’s right,” Josie added and I looked her way.

But I looked back to Alyssa when she again started speaking.