I should not have used your trust as a place to hide.

I’m sorry.

Daniel

I read it once.

Then I put it in a folder with the rest of the divorce documents.

I didn’t reply.

The first Saturday in October, Mom and I went to see Dad.

It was colder than I expected.

The cemetery trees had just started changing colors.

Mom stayed by the car while I carried the flowers over.

I knelt and cleaned a few wet leaves from the edge of the stone.

“Hi, Dad.”

His picture was small.

He looked healthier than I remembered him at the end.

That still surprised me every time.

I set the flowers down.

“I got divorced.”

The wind moved through the trees.

“I’m sorry I lied to you that night.”

My throat tightened.

“I told you Daniel was coming because I thought knowing the truth would hurt you.”

I brushed dirt from one corner of the marker.

“Maybe I was protecting myself too.”

My phone vibrated inside my coat.

For once, I didn’t immediately reach for it.

I stayed there another minute.

Then I stood and checked the screen.

It was a message from my newest client.

Any chance we can move Monday’s design review up thirty minutes?

I typed back.

Absolutely. See you at 8:30.

Mom honked once from the car.

I smiled and started walking toward her.

At Frank Hart’s funeral, when Olivia asked where my husband was, I had said he died the year before because I wanted to hurt Daniel.

It was cruel.

It was also closer to the truth than I understood at the time.

My marriage hadn’t ended when I saw him with another woman.

It hadn’t ended when he admitted the affair.

The paperwork came much later.

It ended in a hospital stairwell, when my father was dying and I begged my husband to come home.

I just didn’t bury it until a year later.