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