It slid off the edge and landed on the floor.
I sat motionless.
Why would a woman at a lakeside café recognize my husband’s name?
Why would she immediately ask whether I was his wife?
And why had she sounded so terribly sorry for me?
I knew that tone.
It was the voice people used when they knew something painful but couldn’t bring themselves to say it.
I rested my forehead against my hands.
For twenty-six years, I’d believed I knew my husband.
Now I wasn’t certain of anything.
Room Twelve
Mark came home that evening acting perfectly normal.
He kissed the top of my head.
Asked what was for dinner.
Opened a beer.
And cheerfully told me about a delivery driver who’d backed into a portable restroom at a construction site.
He laughed at his own jokes.
Helped set the table.
Even washed dishes without being asked.
