I wanted to scream his name.

I wanted to throw myself over him.

I wanted to tear Ethan’s face open with the truth I suddenly knew.

But darkness came too fast.

In the second before I hit the floor, instinct made one decision for me: if I could not stay standing, I would at least stay aware.

I went limp.

My cheek hit the rug near the couch.

It smelled faintly of detergent and dust.

My body was heavy, sluggish, unreliable.

My heart beat so hard it made my ribs ache.

A moment later Caleb’s small body landed beside mine.

Then there was silence.

Ethan’s chair scraped back.

He did not shout.

He did not kneel.

He did not call 911.

He walked around the table slowly, almost thoughtfully, as if he were touring a room he had built in his own imagination long before tonight.

His shoe nudged my shoulder.

Testing.

I stayed limp.

“Good,” he whispered.

Then he picked up his phone and walked toward the hallway.

His voice, when he spoke, was low and relieved in a way I will never forget.

“It’s done.

They ate it.

They’ll both be gone soon.”

A woman answered through the speaker.

Her voice was thin with excitement.

“Are you sure?”

“I followed the dose,” Ethan said.

“It’ll look like accidental poisoning.

I’ll call 911 after it’s too late.”

The woman inhaled sharply, almost laughing.

“Finally.

Then we can stop hiding.”

“I’ll be free,” he said.

That sentence broke something in me more completely than the poison had.

I had heard lies before.

I had heard cruelty, excuses, and the slow cracking sounds of a marriage collapsing behind closed doors.

But I had never heard my husband sound joyful about my death.

I heard a closet door open deeper in the house.

Then a drawer.

Then the metallic clink of keys.

A few moments later Ethan returned dragging a duffel bag.

He stood over us again.

I could feel his gaze move from Caleb to me.

For one impossible heartbeat, I wondered whether some part of him might still remember the cheap motel rooms where we once slept shoulder to shoulder and promised each other forever.

Instead he whispered, “Goodbye,” and walked out the front door.

Cold air touched my face before the door closed again.

I counted heartbeats in the silence.

Ten.

Twenty.

Thirty.

Then I barely moved my lips.

“Caleb.

Don’t move yet.”

His fingers twitched against mine.

Relief nearly crushed me.

I opened my eyes just enough to see him.

He looked waxy and frightened, but he was awake.

When I checked my pocket, my phone was gone.

His was in his school backpack near the hallway.

It looked impossibly far away from where we lay.

Then I heard the sound that changed everything again.

A soft click from the bedroom.

The closet door creaked open.

Ethan had not left us alone.

The figure who stepped into the hall light was Tessa, a woman from Ethan’s office I had met twice.

Once at a holiday party.

Once in the grocery store parking lot when Ethan introduced her too quickly and then acted offended that I noticed how familiar they seemed.

Her hair was tied back.

Blue latex gloves covered her hands.

My phone was in one hand.

In