Chapter 2

This wasn't over.

I posted everything about Rolf and Isabel to the preschool's parents' group chat.

The parents all said the same thing: a woman with no professional decency like that, they didn't want her anywhere near their kids.

The authorities stepped in fast. Isabel was fired.

Between my complaint and my post, she became the rat everyone wanted to stamp out.

No job, and blacklisted across the field.

Even her own brother wanted nothing to do with her.

He took over caring for their parents and paying the medical bills, and told her never to come home again.

Overnight, she was the one everyone had it in for.

That day the sky was clear and endless.

Our family was camping out on the grass.

Rolf was flying a kite with our daughter, laughing without a care.

Isabel came again.

She cried until her face was streaked with tears, dropped to her knees in front of me, and kowtowed to beg my forgiveness.

Rolf saw it and pretended he didn't.

Because he knew what I was capable of.

Red-eyed, Isabel pleaded pitifully, "Madison, I know I wronged you, but do you really have to push me to the edge? I just lined up a job at a school, and you went and killed it. Is there any point to doing this?"

"There's a point." I set down the fruit and lifted my eyes to her. "Was there a point in seducing my husband? I know it takes two, and the two of you are a fine match, a cheating man and a shameless woman. You chose him, so you should know exactly what price you'd have to pay."

"Wherever you try to work, I'll be right behind you, spreading word of your good deeds. I'm going to make sure there's nowhere left for you to go, no job you can hold."

Isabel had cried her eyes swollen, swollen like walnuts.

And still Rolf didn't dare say a single word for her.

Afterward, we packed up and went home.

Isabel was still crouched there on the grass, shoulders shaking as she wept.

When we reached the foot of our building, the neighbors passing by saw my husband carrying our daughter, bags dangling from his arms, dragging the camping cart with his right hand, and they all gave him a thumbs-up.

"Madison, you really married the best husband in the world. If my old man treated me like that, I could die happy."

"I hear he raised this child single-handedly too, never made you worry once, right?"

I let out a cold laugh. "He did raise her, that's true. But you calling him the best husband in the world? I won't sign off on that. All of that is just what he owes."

"Back when I was pregnant, he snuck off in the middle of the night to fool around in our guest room with the neighbor, that Isabel woman. When I went into labor early, I called him again and again and couldn't get through. I fell at home, the placenta tore loose, the delivery went wrong, I hemorrhaged, and by the time they got me to the hospital they had to take out my uterus."

"And when he finally showed up, there were still three of that woman's lipstick marks on his face. You tell me, isn't that disgusting?"

The way the neighbors looked at Rolf changed on the spot.

Never again did anyone call him a good husband.

A flicker of resentment crossed Rolf's eyes, but he had anger and no nerve to voice it.

Because he really had done wrong. He had no right to say anything to me.

Because of this, all he could do was treat me better.

And so we spent six quiet, steady years together.

I'd thought, honestly, that the two of us would go on like that for the rest of our lives.

Back then my mother asked me, "After Rolf did something that awful, aren't you angry? You never thought about divorce?"

Of course I had.