ified grief. He was a diplomat, after all, skilled at presenting the right emotion at the right time. But I knew him. I saw the hollowness in his eyes, the subtle impa

vid' s arm, her sobs theatrical and loud, yet her eyes were dry. She was always the favo

ness. I woke up in a hospital bed to two devastating truths. David had survived with minor injuries. And he had been having an affair. The police officer, trying to be gentle, handed me David's phone

had endured, a life built on a lie. The whispers at the funeral confirmed it. "She never got over that scandal, you know," one of David's colleague

bathroom. My movements were precise, almost ceremonial. I filled the tub with warm water. I laid out the bottle of sleeping pills on the white tile, a neat row o

the bed from our first apartment, the one we lived in right after we got married. My hands, when I held them up, were smooth and unlined. I scrambled out of bed and look

held out a piece of paper. "My mother wants us over for dinner tonight. Be ready by seven." He didn't look at me. He just plac

rents were there, their smiles tight and false. "Eleanor, you must be making David happy," my mother said, her voice laced with a familiar warning. "You know how much our famil

er' s, then to my father' s averted gaze. The same anger, the same helplessness I had felt for thirty years, began to bubble up inside me. But this time was different. I was not that helpless girl anymore. I had lived a lifeti

mother gasped. "Eleanor

am done being the family scapegoat. You wanted this marriage,