He looks at me again in the reflection. “I’ll manage here. You two go have fun.”

This is also not like him. Dinner is to be on the table every night when he’s home. Meat, potatoes, a side, a salad. Cloth napkins. Matching plates. Hands are to be washed and phones absent.

Regret scrapes at me for a single, fleeting moment. We used to be a family. We used to spend time together, all three of us, and although I always had that empty space inside me, it had not yet grown so gaping and vast, and Ken had not yet started spending more time away from us than with us, and our son had been a chubby-cheeked little boy who loved to laugh.

There’d been no secrets.

Now look what we have become. Three people living together beneath the same roof, but does that make us a family? It doesn’t feel very much like it, not anymore.

I try once more. “You sure you don’t want to come along? It would be a great day. You love hiking at Glen Helen, and pizza …”

“I’ve been on the road for a week, Jewelann. I’ve had more junk food than any one man should ever have to tolerate.”

“But not from Ha Ha.” I sound too desperate.

His eyes narrow, and he turns to face me. “I told you, I’ve got paperwork to catch up on.”

“Okay, sure. No problem.”

I nod and back out of the bathroom, fighting tears I don’t understand. I want to spend the afternoon with Eli; him and me, not with Ken who hikes too fast and gets impatient if he has to wait for us to catch up. I want to come home later and take a shower, have some ice cream, watch a movie I’ll forget the plot of halfway through, and climb into my bed alone. I want to do all the things I normally do while Ken is out of town so that I can forget about last night, when I’d been precariously close to cheating on him.

No matter how he got those marks on his thigh, two wrongs don’t make a right. Ken can be unfaithful to me every time he goes out of town, with dozens of other women. It doesn’t matter. I’ll put up with it. I’m never going to leave my husband, and I cannot afford to have him leave me.

My phone vibrates softly against my belly in the pocket of my sweatshirt, and I pull it out, holding my breath, eyes going to the bathroom doorway to make sure Ken’s not watching me.

JEWELANN! the text reads. Great seeing you last night. We should grab a coffee sometime soon.

This message is also from someone not in my contacts, but it has to be either Lisa or Beth. Before I can figure out a non-awkward way to ask, another message pings through.

It’s Lisa, btw. LOL. For real, let’s get together.

A string of emojis follow: a red high heel, two dancing ladies, a wineglass, a doughnut, a face with hearts for eyes.