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Blair: Absolutely not.

Caleb: You let people live like this?

Blair: You’re not a client.

Caleb: I can pay.

Blair: Still no.

The next picture was of a folding chair sitting in the middle of the room. While looking at the folding chair and the empty walls, Caleb stopped feeling like somebody else’s husband. His legal status hadn’t changed, but reality looked different. Ravenna wasn’t in those pictures. There were no feminine shoes near the door and no second toothbrush. It was just Caleb, alone, and starting over.

It was incredibly easy to believe what you wanted when the evidence you could see supported it.

I lasted eleven days before I went to his apartment. He didn’t invite me either. I was leaving a client meeting six minutes from his building when rain started falling hard. I I could’ve gone home and should’ve gone home but I didn’t.

Blair: You home?

Caleb: Yeah.

I stared through the windshield. Rain hitting the glass.

Blair: I’m nearby.

Three dots. Then nothing. Three dots again.

Caleb: Come up.

Caleb opened the door barefoot, in gray sweatpants, and a white T-shirt. He stepped aside, allowing me to walk in. The apartment was exactly as tragic as the pictures suggested.

I slowly looked around. “Jesus.”

“What?”

“You live like a hostage.”

“I’ve been here almost two weeks.”

“You own businesses.”

“Apparently that doesn’t qualify me to decorate.”

“You don’t need decor. You need furniture.”

He shut the door behind me and it clicked that we were alone.

I took off my wet coat. Caleb reached for it and our fingers touched. His eyes dropped to my mouth. Mine did the same.

I had survived thirty-seven days and eleven more. Weeks of telling myself I had boundaries. Months of telling myself the marriage was his problem to resolve. He was standing in front of me looking at me exactly how I’d spent months pretending I didn’t want him to. My conscience tried. She really did.

He’s still married.

I heard it, but I just had too many answers now.

They’re separated.

She knows.

He’s gone.