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After I knew what he’d done, I'd had to endure two whole days of him being at home, acting normally around Colby and me until our son had gone to bed. Then he'd put on his heavy overcoat, left the house, and had gone off to stay at some local hotel.
Those two days had felt like a month, because both he and Colby were still on vacation, and Logan had said he'd had nowhere else to go.
Most women would have screamed and shouted, but that wasn't my style in the least. I was naturally quiet, and I'd spent most of my life conditioned to put others before myself. Devastated by how my husband had let me down, I'd hidden my true feelings from Colby and determinedly focused all of my attention on him.
However, my best guess as to why Logan had hung around was because he hadn't considered how we should end and because, as he'd told me in his drunken haze, the details of where he and Poppy would live still probably hadn't been fully arranged.
I'd given Logan twelve years of my life, married for ten of those, and he'd betrayed me, He’d broken my trust. From my perspective, no matter how distressed I'd felt, I'd known then we'd never come back from that. Broken hearted as I'd been about my husband's deceit, I was determined to focus on Colby's welfare. One of us had to put our son first.
Finding strength I didn't know I possessed, on the third day I'd told Logan to leave and demanded he didn't come back, only for his mother to show up at my door two hours later again to try to plead his case.
It had backfired spectacularly because Doreen loved me like a daughter and was as devastated by her son's behavior as I'd been, and she told me she was ashamed Logan had treated me this way. If he'd thought I'd relent and let him come and go from our lives until he was ready, he'd been wrong.
After that day, I'd worn a public face and a private one, and I'd fought hard not to allow him to control me in the same oppressive way he had during our marriage.
When I’d hired the services of a family lawyer, I'd insisted Logan stick to a rigid schedule of visitation for Colby and ensured he couldn't exert demands on our lives for access to our son when it suited him best.
Most of our friends had been his friends and I quickly realised how much of my life had been taken over by his wants, needs and likes when I was left with only a handful of people who still called after he'd left.
Those few who were still around said they'd admired my strength, but in the privacy of my bedroom, and especially in the dead of night, I'd frequently shed tears for being naïve.
I had also felt a sense of shame that I'd somehow failed to take care of my marriage and keep Logan interested in me.
Eleven months and three weeks after we'd parted there was still a huge hole in my life where Logan's work events and social occasions had once been, and I had still felt emotionally overwhelmed when I thought about how he had wronged me. Colby and I struggled to find our feet as we learned to make it on our own.
I'd found it hard to move forward and I partially blamed myself for this because I'd never been a very confident person. Knowing Logan had fallen for a much younger woman had only added to my lack of self-esteem.
Looking back on our marriage, every decision that had been made had been decided by Logan.
This is the reason why we'd only had one child. Colby's purpose for Logan was to carry on his Drummond family name, and since Logan had deserted us, I was glad he'd gotten his way.
I couldn't imagine trying to bring up more than one child as a single mom while working. My admiration for those women who did this had risen to a whole new level after Logan was gone and I imagined myself in their shoes.
There were days when my strength shone through and during these 'good days', I pushed myself to do all the chores expected of me as a mother.
Even then my fragile moods still swung between fury, shame, self-loathing and mistrust like a hypnotist's watch in full flight after I'd been deserted by the man I had loved with all of my heart.
Sometimes I tried not to focus on the negative parts of our marriage, and occasionally I allowed myself the luxury of reflecting on how we used to be. It was during those times I dwelled on how close Logan and I once had been.
During these moments, I felt further distress when I reminded myself that those precious early memories of our time together would be forever tinged with a measure of sadness because I had shared them with Logan. Then I'd feel mad and not sad, and on those occasions, anger had felt a necessity because it had gotten me through the day.
With Christmas just around the corner, I'd been dreading the impending milestone of our first without my husband, not that I'd ever have taken him back. Before the split, I'd never empathized with people who felt depressed when the festive season loomed—until it was me who'd faced it alone.
There was also another depressing hurdle to get through, as I had been due to spend part of the holiday on my own, without my son.
Christmas visitation time fell on a Logan weekend and consequently, this was scheduled at my husband's and his mistress's cozy new love nest, with his father, and my soon-to-be ex-in-laws.
As I neared the end of 5th Avenue, a sudden flash of lightning was rapidly followed by a huge clap of thunder which almost frightened the life out of me.
The sudden noise shook me out of my broody dark thoughts because I hated thunderstorms.
Forced out of my daydream by the change of weather, I fought against the instantaneous noisy roar of the heavy downpour and quickly made for the nearest shelter. Taking refuge under a brightly striped canvas shop canopy, I stood next to others who'd had the same idea.
Laden with my glossy paper bags stuffed full of gifts, I stood for a few seconds wondering how long the downpour would last. I glanced at the flimsy paper bags as I caught my breath and when I looked above me I saw the striped canvas bulge as the rain collected on top of it.
For a moment I considered whether or not to run to my car, parked in a parking lot a block and a half away or stay where I was, and quickly rejected making a run for it when I thought of the already damp—and therefore compromised— bags in my hands.
I'd spent far more than I'd intended to but felt pleased with my purchases of luxury sweaters, perfume and other delicate goodies for Logan's parents and the handful of friends that I had. I knew I couldn't chance to expose the shopping bags further to the rain without them falling apart.
