Chapter 1

The day before my husband's surgery, I was out of town on a business trip, and every ticket home was sold out.

I got so frantic I started crying. A colleague couldn't stand watching it, so she booked me a rideshare home.

The driver who took the ride was the very husband who was supposed to be lying in a hospital bed. Bertram Dickerson.

And in the passenger seat sat an intern from his company.

Without even turning around, Bertram said to me, "Hi there. You booked the private three-seat ride, right? The lady next to me is my wife, so she doesn't count toward the headcount."

"I won't pick up anyone else on the way, I'll take you straight home. We split the toll fifty-fifty, that work for you?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

The whole way, the two of them flirted and teased each other.

As we neared the last rest stop, they started talking about Bertram's birthday.

Bertram laughed. "So we wouldn't get interrupted, just the two of us, I told Winona Fletcher I was having surgery."

"And to be safe, I went ahead and bought up every ticket. She wants to come home? She'd have to walk."

I quietly clenched my fist and spoke up.

"Open the door. I'm getting out."

...

This SUV of Bertram's is mine.

To be exact, it was the car my parents bought for me as part of my dowry when I married him.

But in five full years of marriage, this was the first time I had ever sat inside it.

Every time I wanted to use the car, or hoped he'd come pick me up on a rainy day,

Bertram would turn me down, looking put out. "Babe, I've got a serious thing about my space. I don't like other people in my car, you'll mess up my personal space. You get that, right?"

Back then it pained me that his job was so stressful, and I made allowances for his quirk.

For three years, rain or shine, I crammed onto the subway and left the car entirely to him.

But only now did I see it clearly. In this so-called personal space of his,

a pink air freshener hung from the vent,

a soft little teddy-bear pillow sat in the back seat,

and the armrest console was cluttered with a heap of snack boxes.

Some sense of territory. Some not wanting anyone else in his car.

So it turned out his passenger seat had been pampering another woman all along.

I looked toward the front.

The one in the passenger seat was Edwina Swanson, an intern who'd only recently gone permanent at Bertram's company.

In the group team-building photo Bertram had sent, she'd been the one crouching sweetly in the front row.

I'd noticed her right away, even said she was cute.

What had Bertram said back then?

He'd curled his lip, careless. "Her? Her head's not on the job at all. I give it a month before they let her go."

Bertram is an industry star, demanding of himself and everyone else.

The reason we ended up together was that I was smart and driven, that I fit what he wanted in a wife.

He praised me often, said I was level-headed and clear-eyed, good at my work, that we were a natural match.

After we married, he kept insisting I stay independent.

When I ran into trouble at work, he told me to figure it out myself.

When I broke down over my father's illness, he coldly lectured me that grown adults shouldn't dump their negativity on their partner.

When I forwarded him a Christmas video, all he did was frown and call it a trap set by corporations.

Even when I bought some new snacks from the grocery store, he'd say I was indulgent, held hostage by consumerism.

And of course, we never once celebrated a single holiday together.

Now, I watched him switch on the self-driving mode, dig a pouch of fruit snacks out of the snack box, tear it open, and hold it up to Edwina's mouth.

"Open up. Your favorite."

Edwina leaned in and bit down on it, then kissed his finger while she was at it.

Bertram tapped the tip of her nose. "Little dummy."

"Slow down, don't get the juice on your dress. I don't feel like washing it for you again tonight."

Watching them, my stomach churned.

I thought of the day I was on my period and accidentally spilled a little hot honey water on my dress,

and how Bertram looked at me with open disgust.

"You're a grown woman and you can't even hold onto something?"

"Wash it yourself. It's just one thing, don't waste water using the machine."

I'd thought he was cold by nature, that he simply didn't know how to take care of anyone.

But it turned out he could peel open fruit snacks for someone, could talk to someone in that voice you'd use to coax a child.

I stared hard at the back of his head, and it still felt too absurd to believe.

How could he be cheating?