Chapter 2

The room went still.

Color drained from Colin's face. First red, then white, then a sick gray.

But he recovered quickly.

He didn't panic. He didn't explain.

Instead, he stepped toward me, staring me down as he forced his anger low.

"Maren? What are you doing here? Did you follow me?"

Talia froze.

She looked at Colin, then at me. Her lips parted.

"Colin... who is she?"

For one second, she looked as if she had said too much. She lifted a hand to cover her mouth.

"Oh my God."

Her eyes widened as she looked at me.

"She can't be your wife, can she?"

The surprise came too perfectly, every bit of it displayed on her face.

Colin moved in front of her at once.

"Talia, don't listen to her."

Talia caught his sleeve. Her eyes filled with tears so quickly they looked rehearsed.

"Maren, I'm sorry. I thought you two were only still living under the same roof because of your daughter."

Colin turned to me as if I were the one who had broken into someone else's home.

"Maren and I have been over for a long time. We only live in the same house. We barely speak."

Then his voice turned colder.

"Talia, don't listen to her. She's been under a lot of stress lately. She sees anyone as a threat to her marriage. She's jealous because you're young, so she followed me here and decided to make a scene. Stay behind me. She won't touch you."

In a few sentences, he turned me into the unstable woman barging into someone else's happiness.

Then he looked back at me.

"Be honest, Maren. Without my income all these years, could you have lived the way you do now?"

"And what good is this little performance going to do our daughter?"

He sounded so certain.

As if he had not cheated, lied, and moved our money into this house.

As if I were the one at fault.

I didn't scream. I didn't lunge at either of them.

I walked to the island and gathered the Target and Whole Foods receipts, one by one, into my handbag.

Colin frowned. For the first time, something uneasy crossed his face.

"What are you taking those for?"

I slid the receipts into my bag.

"I scan them for rewards points. They add up."

Colin gave a short laugh.

"See, Talia? That's Maren. She'll do anything for a few reward points."

He put an arm around Talia's shoulders, his contempt growing bolder.

"Live with her long enough and you'll see. She can worry over the smallest thing for days."

"What kind of life is that?"

I said nothing.

I tucked the receipts into my bag and zipped it closed.

Then I picked up my coat by the door and walked out.

The door shut behind me.

I sat in my car without starting it.

The receipts lay across the passenger seat.

Every transaction carried the same last four digits.

My card.

The card Colin had always assumed I would never examine closely.

Twenty minutes later, I was home with my laptop open.

My daughter called from upstairs.

"Mom? Can you come up here for a second?"

When I entered her room, she was sitting on her bed, scrolling through her phone.

On the screen was a pink formal dress.

The skirt glittered with tiny beads, like starlight on water.

"A lot of girls in my class are looking at this one." She held the phone out to me. "I know it's expensive, but can we get it? I can stop buying coffee. I can pack my lunch."

I looked at the price.

Two hundred and forty-nine dollars.

Before, I would not have hesitated.

I had spent the whole week moving bills from one side of the kitchen table to the other, trying to decide what could wait.

"Can we wait a little?" I finally said. "Maybe next month."

The light in her face dimmed.

"Again."

She took back her phone and rolled over with her back to me.

"Forget it. It's not like I have to have it."

I stood in the doorway, my throat tight.

The bills on the kitchen table had been pressing on me for a month.

I couldn't even bring myself to look at the dress price again.

But she had already put in her earbuds. She didn't want to hear me.

Back downstairs, a salon confirmation for Talia lit up my phone.

The appointment was for the next morning.

I set the phone beside Wren's dress page and opened the refrigerator.

Half a carton of milk. A few eggs. Frozen pizza Wren didn't even like.

The day before, I had compared two brands of milk at the grocery store and bought the cheaper one.

Talia's receipts listed flowers and steak, two boxes of imported strawberries, a bottle of champagne, and a bag of organic snacks I never let myself buy.

I leaned against the refrigerator door and almost laughed.

Every dollar I had saved had gone into Talia's life.

At eleven that night, Colin came home.

He opened our bedroom door with his usual impatient, controlling tone.

"What happened today ends today."

He stood in the bedroom doorway, his voice already impatient.

"Wren is applying to college. She doesn't need you making a mess of everything." He folded his arms.

"The mortgage. The car. Her tuition. You think any of that pays itself?"

"You want to turn this into a divorce? Fine. But when Wren starts asking why things have to change, don't look at me. You wanted this."

I looked at him.

Usually, I would have started explaining. I would have said I wasn't trying to hurt Wren. I would have promised to keep the peace.

"I'm going to bed," I said.

Colin frowned. "That's it?"

I picked up my phone.

"That's it."

He stood there for a moment, waiting for something else.

I walked past him.

The next afternoon, I drove to the school thirty minutes early.

Cars lined the curb outside the gates. Parents leaned against doors and hoods, waiting for dismissal.

I stayed in my car and opened my phone while I waited.

Wren's newest post had gone up less than an hour earlier.

She stood in front of a fitting-room mirror in a pink formal dress, smiling brighter than I had seen in weeks.

Behind her, Talia stood with one hand at her waist, carefully smoothing the skirt.