I paid some bills, instead. I researched hot water heaters and dishwashers. I stuffed a turkey, now roasting. My sweet potato tzimmes is baking and the matzah balls are simmering. I even made a special round honey challah from scratch. Now, in my clean and quiet kitchen, I stand at my sink with my coffee in my hand and stare out the window, across the yard, at the carriage house.

I can’t stop thinking about the way Ken made love to me on the table a few days ago—no. Not made love. There hadn’t been much love in that at all. The memory of Christian watching us is what fills my mind.

I could be over to the carriage house in three minutes, fewer if I run.

Here’s the thing about addiction. You can tell yourself you have it under control, and maybe you can even keep yourself from giving in to it, but there is no stopping the craving. There is only the struggle to resist. Sometimes that struggle is day by day. Sometimes, it’s second by second, breath by breath, it’s that free-fall space between one heartbeat and the next, when you hope you’re strong enough to stop yourself, but you’re not … quite … sure you’ll be able to.

If I’d been what Christian always came back to, he was what I’d always run toward. I had abased myself for him. I’d willingly accepted the scraps of his attention and affection, knowing he was using me and not caring because being with him had always been a rush and a high that nothing else could replicate. I’d wanted to make him desire me again so I could turn him down, so I could wound him. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think I could break him, but sting him? Yes. Make him doubt himself, even just a little? Oh, yes.

I’d walked away from him. I’d controlled my addiction. But the craving … that I can’t stop.

A woman comes out of the carriage house. Her heels are high. Her dress, short. She carries a clutch bag under her arm, and she’s scanning her phone, looking down the horseshoe driveway toward the street, where a car is pulling up. She waves and heads for it while I watch until my sneer becomes an open-mouthed circle of surprise.

It’s Beth.

Christian comes out of the house a minute later. He wears scrubs and a lanyard around his neck with an ID badge. I wait until I see his car leave the driveway. Then, running, I cross the yard and let myself into the carriage house.

The rust-colored shag carpet in all the spaces is gone, leaving bare concrete beneath. The carpet is in rolls leaning against the spackle-dotted walls in one corner. Two small squares of slightly different shades of pale blue are painted on one wall. Two of light green on the other. The furniture has been pushed all to one end of the living room. The boxes are all stacked together at the other.