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Christmas morning should have been about our two-year-old son tearing into presents beneath the tree, but instead I stood three feet away and watched my husband lie directly to his face. Julian crouched beside Harrison, kissed his forehead, and promised he would call from Tokyo, where an emergency business merger supposedly required him for eight days. Harrison clung to his leg and whispered, “Daddy, don’t go,” while Julian smiled that calm, convincing smile everyone trusted. The only problem was that I already knew my husband was not going to Tokyo.
I was Christmas shopping with my mother-in-law when I saw my husband holding another woman’s hand in the middle of a crowded Chicago mall. Daniel was twenty yards away, laughing in the charcoal cashmere coat I had bought him for his birthday only a month earlier, while a woman I had never seen before leaned against his shoulder. My shopping bag slipped from my hand, but Margaret caught my arm before I could move. “Don’t react, Emily,” she whispered. “Watch me.”