“Who’s that?” Ken asks from the bathroom doorway, a fresh towel wrapped around his waist. His wheaten hair, slicked back, is dark with wet, but I can see glints of silver here and there.

He’s so handsome it hurts my heart, because I used to love him, or at least I thought I did. Now all I can do is wait for him to tell me he’s in love with someone else. That he’s going to leave and tear my life apart.

I hold up the phone, relieved I can show him the message. “Lisa Weaver. From high school. We hung out last night at the reunion. I think we might try to get together sometime soon.”

Ken grunts and heads for the closet to grab some clothes. He grew up in Indiana, and before I met him, he’d lived all over the country. He often said how “weird” it was to randomly run into someone you went to school with at the hardware store, or to have your kid in class with the child of one of your old teachers.

My husband never has any trouble making friends, though. People seem to like and trust him automatically—the way I did when we first met. Ken doesn’t have Christian’s effortless charm, but his is more genuine.

I’m comparing them again.

Dressed in sweats and a T-shirt, Ken pauses to kiss me on the top of my head. I turn in his embrace to offer my mouth. The kiss is dry. When I part my lips, he pulls away.

“Not now,” he says. “Not when the kid’s still awake.”

It used to be that when Ken returned from a trip, he’d be ready to tear off my clothes the first moment we could get behind a closed door. Now I can’t remember how long it’s been since we had sex. I think of the marks on his leg. All those nights in hotel rooms when he’s supposed to be alone.

After he leaves the bedroom, I go into the bathroom. I gather up his discarded khakis, the polo shirt, the white briefs and socks. I lift the pile to my face. What do I expect to smell? Perfume? I breathe deep. A familiar scent drifts into my nostrils … fresh cut grass? No. Gas station burritos? No … It’s—

“What are you doing?”

With my back still toward the doorway, I drop the clothes into the hamper. “Just cleaning up in here.”

“I told you I’d take care of it.” Ken pulls the hamper away from me.

I don’t follow him out of the room. I need a few minutes to compose myself, which I do by washing my face. I swirl mouthwash to rid myself of what I smelled on my husband’s clothes.

Sex.

CHAPTER
7

THE SCREAMING WAKES me, but I have to fight through a dream of grabbing hands and sinking into quicksand before I can get myself out of bed. Ken stirs beside me, but I’m the one out the door and down the hall to Eli’s room. He’s sitting up in bed, no longer screaming, but his eyes are wide open, and his face contorts in the shifting screensaver light from his laptop, open on the desk.