I have no idea what to say to this, but her laughter pushes a stunned giggle out of me.

“Your face,” Lisa says through a flurry of chuckles. “God, Jewelann. Your face. I’m sorry, that was really dark humor and nothing to joke about, right? If her husband does end up falling off a ladder, I guess I could be implicated in that, huh? I shouldn’t make jokes like that. I guess it’s just my way of dealing with a shit situation. I loved my husband, but Beth hates hers.”

“That’s too bad.”

“What about you?” Lisa asks.

I’m not sure how to answer, but my hesitation seems reply enough. She laughs, again tossing back her head and drawing attention to the two of us. She knocks her knuckles on the tabletop and wags her finger at me.

“I don’t hate him,” I say. “At least not enough to get him up on a ladder.”

Then we both laugh, long and hard and loudly, and I don’t care who turns to stare at us.

I barely make it home before Eli gets back from school. I’m in a good mood. Lisa made me promise to get together with her and Beth for “something stronger than a latté,” and although I don’t think Beth and I will ever be friends, I had agreed.

To have a best friend, you need to have a friend. And to have a friend, you need to have someone who will look at the worst parts of you and not turn away. Someone who understands you even when you’re not sure you understand yourself. Someone you trust with your secrets.

Someone you trust to keep them.

My smile disappears when I spot Ken’s car in the driveway. It’s the middle of the afternoon. He should be at the office. Parked at the far end of the horseshoe is another car, one I don’t recognize.

He would not have brought her here, would he? To fuck in our house, my house, our bed? Unless, I think, he’s finally leaving me for her. Unless he’s going to show her off, this nameless, faceless woman who has taken his affections over the past few years, the one who so distracts him when he’s with me that it’s like I’m the one who’s a stranger.

For a full minute, I consider driving away and not coming back until I’m sure Eli’s home. I have errands to run, or at least to manufacture, but no money to spend until next week when Ken’s paycheck hits the direct deposit. My fingers curl around my steering wheel, and when they start to ache I finally release it and sit back. I have to go inside.

A greeting rises to my lips, something cheerful and insincere, but the words die on my tongue the moment I step into the kitchen. Ken sits at the table, a mug in front of him, the coffee pot on a hot pad next to it. He is not with his mistress.