“My husband texted from vegas: ‘just married my coworker. You’re pathetic BTW.’ I replied: ‘cool.’ Then I blocked his cards and changed the house locks. Next morning, police were at my door…”

Of course she was Rebecca. There had to be a Rebecca in stories like this—a woman with smooth hair and office-insider jokes and the kind of smile that says she does not think consequences apply to her because she has never yet been forced to pay one in full. I knew who she was, vaguely. Coworker. Marketing. Younger than me by maybe five or six years. Laugh too loud. Once, at a holiday party, she had complimented my earrings and then spent the rest of the night orbiting Ethan with the practiced innocence of a woman who wanted to be noticed without ever appearing to pursue attention. I had thought she was mildly annoying. I had not thought she was spending eight months in my marriage like a thief casing a house from the inside.

By one-thirty, every trace of Ethan that I could legally and safely remove was boxed and stacked in the garage. I left the wedding album upstairs in the linen closet. He hadn’t earned the right to make me touch it yet.

At 2 p.m., the doorbell rang.