Chapter 1

My husband never loved me.

The rain came down in sheets on the day my son graduated from preschool.

I called my husband, Edward Grant. "Are you out of the office yet? It's really coming down out here."

"Yeah. Home in an hour," he said.

"Could you swing by the school and grab me and Charlie on your way?" I asked.

"Can't. Take a cab." That was all Edward gave me.

Then the line went dead.

A second later a payment from Edward landed on my phone, 20 dollars, with a note that read: [Edward: Cab fare].

But it was Friday at rush hour, and nothing with four wheels was going to stop for us anytime soon.

So I zipped Charlie into his raincoat, sat him on the back of my scooter, and pointed us toward home through the downpour.

Traffic pushed past us the whole way, and we ended up idling at a red light.

Charlie shot his arm out toward the intersection. "Mom, that's Dad's car!"

I followed his finger and found Edward behind the wheel, with a woman from his office in the passenger seat.

The light turned green.

His car cut past us and threw a sheet of cold water over both of us.

Something in me went quiet then, and I knew a marriage like this wasn't worth holding onto.

*****

Edward still wasn't home when we got there.

I ran a bath for Charlie.

Ten minutes later the front door opened and Edward walked in, his suit still crisp, not a drop of rain on him.

He must have seen the soaked shoes and the raincoat dripping by the door, and the wet clothes I hadn't changed out of, because he offered an explanation.

"I'd already promised a coworker a ride," he said.

In other words, he'd promised her first, so Charlie and I lost by the order of the line.

I kept toweling Charlie's wet hair and didn't turn around.

"Okay," I said.

Disappointment had scraped me down so far that I'd lost the urge to ask him anything else.

Charlie was too little to catch any of it. His whole face opened up at the sight of his dad.

"Dad, me and Mom saw you and Charlotte on the way home," Charlie said.

Charlotte Evans was the coworker who'd been riding beside Edward.

Edward froze for a second, then crossed the room to me.

"Susan, don't read into it. Charlotte's husband is traveling, she had no umbrella, and it was pouring. I'm her supervisor. Keeping my people safe is part of the job," he said.

I hadn't had an umbrella either, and apparently our safety didn't count. I wasn't being petty about it. I simply couldn't make the math work.

Dropping off a coworker had somehow made picking up his wife and son impossible.

The car had four seats besides his own. If one of them fit her, I couldn't see why two of them wouldn't fit us.

The old me would've pushed until he answered. I was too worn down for any of that.

"Got it," I said.

Then I handed Charlie off to him and went to shower.

Charlie's graduation had run me into the ground. I taught at that preschool and I was his mother on top of it, so all I wanted was hot water and ten minutes of quiet.

Hot water beat down on my shoulders, and twelve years with Edward came back to me whether I wanted them or not.

He'd been a few years ahead of me in the law program, handsome in a shut-down sort of way, and I never once saw him smile.

Junior year, I threw everything I had at him. I brought him breakfast every morning, washed his clothes, and bought him gifts he never asked for.

When his mother landed in the hospital, I showed up without an invitation and took care of her.

Everyone always said a woman chasing a man had the easy end of it. I chased Edward for two years and got nowhere.

What finally moved him came later. A plaintiff pulled a knife on him during his first year practicing, and I stepped in front of it and took the blade myself.

We dated three years after that, married with both families' blessing, and had Charlie.

For years I told myself all that giving had to add up to love on his side. After the rain, that story fell apart.

Edward didn't love me and never had, and that was why the boy I gave him meant so little to him.

I shut off the water and came out of the bathroom.

Edward sat there typing on his phone while Charlie played on the floor by himself.

I walked over and said, "I need to go out for a bit. Could you stay with Charlie?"

"Sure." Edward set the phone down.

He didn't ask where I was going.

The old urge to tell him every last detail had gone out of me.

I grabbed an umbrella, walked out, and took a cab to the nearest dealership.