Chapter 3

David and I weren' t just married, we were an institution. Everyone we knew had watched us grow up together. My family was quiet, reserved. My father was a man of few words, and my mother was obsessed with appearances and what the neighbors thought. David' s family was the opposite. They were loud, warm, and full of life. His mother, Mrs. Thompson, had basically adopted me from the time I was ten years old. His house was my second home, a refuge from the sterile perfection of my own.

David was my opposite in every way. He was the sun, and I was the quiet planet that orbited him. He was charming and popular, I was shy and studious. He taught me how to let loose, and I helped him focus. We were two halves of a whole. It was never a question of if we would get together, only when. It happened the summer after high school graduation, as natural as breathing. Ten years of dating, then ten years of marriage. Twenty years of my life had been defined by David Thompson.

I remember the day he first mentioned Chloe Davis. It was about a year ago. He had just hired her as his new executive assistant.

"She' s a bit much," he had said over dinner, swirling the wine in his glass. "Very ambitious, a little aggressive. I had to be firm with her today."

I didn' t think much of it. A few weeks later, he changed his tune.

"You know, Chloe' s had a really tough life," he told me one night. "Grew up with nothing. She' s putting her younger brother through college. I was wrong about her. She' s just a fighter."

He started talking about her more and more. "Chloe came up with this brilliant marketing strategy." "Chloe stayed late to help me finish the quarterly report." "Chloe knows how I take my coffee without even asking."

A small, uncomfortable feeling began to grow in my stomach. I was an architect. I worked long hours, I had my own demanding career. I wasn' t the type of wife who packed his lunch or laid out his clothes. We had always been partners, equals. But suddenly, I felt like I was being compared to this woman, this perfect, doting assistant.

The first time I felt a real jolt of alarm was at David' s company dinner. I was talking to one of his business partners when Chloe appeared at David' s side. She straightened his tie, her fingers lingering on his chest for a moment too long.

"Your collar was crooked, David," she said, her voice soft and intimate. Then she turned to me and smiled, a bright, empty smile. "He works so hard, he forgets these little things. Someone has to look out for him."

It was a clear territorial marking. She was positioning herself as the one who took care of him, implying that I didn' t. I felt a flush of anger, but I said nothing. I didn' t want to seem like a jealous, insecure wife.

The final straw came a few months before the accident. It was his mother' s 60th birthday party. It was a huge deal, a party we had been planning for months. An hour before we were supposed to leave, David called me.

"Honey, I' m so sorry. I' m still stuck at the office. We' re on a huge deadline, and I can' t leave."

"David, it' s your mother' s birthday! She' ll be devastated if you' re not there."

"I know, I know. I' ll try to get there as soon as I can. Chloe is staying to help me, we' ll get it done twice as fast."

I went to the party alone. Mrs. Thompson tried to hide her disappointment, but I could see it in her eyes. I called David' s phone a dozen times. No answer. Finally, I tried his office landline.

A woman' s voice answered. Chloe' s voice.

"David Thompson' s office."

"Chloe, it' s Sarah. Is David there? Can I please speak to him?"

"Oh, Sarah," she said, her voice suddenly flustered. "He' s, uh, in a very important meeting right now. He can' t be disturbed."

"A meeting? At nine o' clock at night? Let me talk to him, Chloe."

"I' m sorry, I can' t," she said firmly. And then, before she hung up, I heard David' s voice in the background. He wasn' t talking business. He was laughing. A deep, relaxed laugh.

I stood in the hallway of my in-laws' house, surrounded by the sounds of a party, and I felt a profound sense of betrayal. He wasn't working. He was with her. He had chosen to be with her on his own mother' s birthday.

We had a huge fight when he finally came home late that night. He denied everything, of course. He called me crazy, paranoid, jealous. He twisted it all around until I was the one apologizing, for not trusting him, for doubting our love.

I let him convince me. I wanted to believe him. I couldn' t imagine my life without him. Looking back now, sitting in the cold silence of our empty house, I realized the accident hadn't been the start of the end. The end had begun long before that. The car crash was just his perfect, cowardly excuse.