That was Amber; no butter on her toast, she delivered everything dry. Winnie’s hands were shaking—no, her whole body was shaking—as she waited. The photo came, the notification lighting up the phone. She stared at it hard—so hard her eyes hurt. It was there; it was right there in front of her. The photo blurred as soon as it came into view, the faces of the two people disappearing as her eyes filled with tears. But she’d seen them, she knew the faces well: her husband and Dulce Tucker.

The photo was blurry; Amber had taken it on the move and there was a blur of a red fingernail in the corner of the shot, but there was no mistaking Nigel, whose body was turned sideways toward the woman next to him, his arm thrown casually across the back of the booth behind her. She was wearing a bright red sweater that accentuated the swell of her breasts. The thing that bothered Winnie the most was the hand that rested on her husband’s chest, a hand so comfortable being there that it surely had been there many times before. And where else, Winnie thought. Where else had this woman’s hands been? Both of them were smiling. Isn’t that something, Winnie thought. It’s possible to smile while breaking someone’s heart.

Thank you, she sent back to Amber, and then she had a panic attack on the cold ground of the parking garage, her car filled with pretty, dead flowers.

Winnie dropped the flowers off then drove straight to Nigel’s office. She’d yet to cry, she’d yet to feel anything other than a greasy dread that was working its way through her mind at that very moment. She was no longer in charge; some other woman had access to her husband’s heart. Did he love Dulce? That was the question of the hour, nagging under skin like a splinter. Had her husband fallen in love with someone right under her nose? She’d been distracted, she definitely had been…between work, Samuel, and her volunteer hours. She was a busy person, like everyone else. The truly rotten part about this was that she hadn’t even suspected. What did you think, you idiot? That he really wouldn’t leave you eventually after what you did…?