I kept reading.
Michael wrote that during the twentieth year of our marriage, he had done something he could never forgive himself for.
That was the year I spent months caring for my sick mother. I stayed at her house most of the week.
I remembered that time perfectly.
Susan was also going through a difficult period. Her marriage had just ended. She came to our house frequently.
Sometimes I was even the one who asked her to stop by, bring Michael something for dinner, or simply keep him company.
Then I reached a sentence in the letter and stopped.
I didn’t want to keep reading.
But I already knew.
What I was most afraid of finding was written in the next few lines.
Michael and Susan had had an affair.
Not just once.
It hadn’t been an accidental mistake.s
It had lasted almost eight months.
I threw the letter onto the floor.
The first thing I felt wasn’t even anger.
It was disbelief.
Susan?
The girl who, when we were twelve, had gotten into a fight at school because someone insulted me?
The woman who stood beside me on my wedding day?
The woman who hugged me when I lost my first baby?
The woman who spent the entire night with me in the hospital when Michael had to undergo heart surgery?
She had known all along?
I grabbed my phone and called her.
It was turned off.
I called again.
Nothing.
So I continued reading.
