Her voice shook.
“He left the marriage.”
I had known Michael Mercer for years. He was reserved, successful, polished. I had always assumed he and Karen were one of those couples who had figured adulthood out while the rest of us were still improvising.
Apparently, I had been wrong.
“What happened?”
Karen laughed bitterly.
“He told me he hasn’t loved me for years.”
I felt anger before I had any right to.
“He said that?”
“Twenty-two years, Alex.”
She stared down at her hands.
“Twenty-two years of birthdays, mortgages, school concerts, Christmas cards, vacations, surgeries, funerals, arguments about paint colors and whose turn it was to buy milk.”
She swallowed.
“And he sat across from me this morning drinking coffee and told me the last eight of those years had been an act.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Anything I came up with sounded useless.
So I just list
