I opened the cupboard and reached for a coffee mug.
Just one.
For years, I’d prepared coffee for Tyler, adjusting the strength because he preferred it differently.
That morning, I made mine exactly the way I liked it.
I carried the mug to the wooden kitchen table.
The same table where our children used to eat cereal before school.
The same table where Margaret had spread out the documents.
The same table where my husband had tried to explain why another woman should live in my house.
I sat in the chair I actually wanted.
Then I looked around.
The familiar cabinets.
The photographs.
The sunlight on the floor.
Everything looked the same.
Yet somehow, the house felt entirely different.
For months, I’d been afraid of discovering the truth.
I’d worried that acknowledging my husband’s distance would destroy the life we’d built.
But the truth hadn’t destroyed me.
It had finally allowed me to make decisions I’d been avoiding.
