I felt younger, falling in love with Wayne Reynolds. I felt lighter, happier in my own skin. I wore more skirts and fewer pants. I painted my toenails bright pink. I bought all new underwear, including a leopard print WonderBra from Victoria’s Secret.

I became a better mother. More patient with the endless routine of feeding, bathing, and tending a small child. More willing to laugh at Ree’s precocious demands for exactly this fork positioned exactly this way on exactly this color plate.

Ironically enough, I even became a better wife. On the one hand, I managed to purchase a blank hard drive on which I was supposed to copy the contents of the family computer. On the other hand, I attempted the deed less and less, because once I had the “forensically sound” copy, I wouldn’t have a reason to meet with Wayne again.

So I made excuses for my husband. One random photo over a few months’ stretch of time did not a porn-addict make. Most likely, the image was downloaded to his computer by mistake. He’d stumbled upon the wrong website, copied the wrong file. My husband could not be a pedophile. Look at the way he smiled at his daughter or his endless patience for her attempts to braid his thick wavy hair or the way he spent the first snow day of the season pulling her around the neighborhood on her little purple sled. That photo was simply some odd, vaguely terrifying anomaly.

I fixed my husband’s favorite meals. I praised his articles in the newspaper. And I shooed him out the door to work, because the sooner he left, the sooner I could go online and talk to Wayne.

Jason didn’t question my new and improved mood. I knew he still remembered my middle-of-the-night request for a second child, and was grateful I’d let him off the hook.

I didn’t try to touch my husband anymore, and he was happy.

Ree and I developed a new routine for Thursdays. I would pick her up at home and we would go to the little bistro around the corner for an early ladies’ dinner. Afterward, it was back to the school for the basketball game, where Ree would take a seat next to Ethan, and, once the game got going, I would disappear with Wayne.

“We’re just going for a little walk,” I’d tell Ree, and she would nod placidly, already too engrossed in pestering Ethan to care.