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things she was going to have to tell them—actually uttering the words “We’ve lost everything, and we have no idea what’s to come”—were unimaginable. Meg set her coffee cup on the ground and tightened her robe against the chilly morning air.
    After the meal, when everyone had finally left, Meg had the children help clear the table, then, to their apparent shock, dismissed them from further kitchen duty. She needed to be by herself, to let the corners of her mouth release her frozen smile, to fall silent. For the next two hours, she cleaned furiously, her mind blank as she gave herself over to the physical task. She loaded the dishwasher carelessly, dishes banging as she dropped them haphazardly into the slots. Hand-washing the crystal glasses, she squeezed a wineglass so hard the stem snapped, but she ignored the bleeding from her thumb, and after a while it stopped.
    Later, when she could find nothing else to clean, she dragged herself upstairs, emotionally and physically drained. James was nowhere to be seen, which was fine with her.
    “I’m going to sleep. G’night, kids,” she called out from her bedroom doorway.
    “Mom?” Sam’s voice floated down the hall. It was unusual for her to go to bed without coming into their rooms to say good night.
    “Go to bed, Sam,” she replied, firmly shutting the door. She hated ignoring her son, but she couldn’t face the children. Not tonight.
    She peeled off her clothes, dropping them on the bathroom floor before grabbing a nightgown from the hook on the back of the door. What difference did it make what she did with the clothes now? she thought. All her compulsive housekeeping and keeping on top of things had only brought her to this point. Nowhere.
    Sliding under the comforter, Meg was so exhausted that she knew, thankfully, she would find the oblivion of sleep quickly. She was wrong. Over and over, she replayed the conversation with James and his actions over the past months. Everything about their life since August was now recast in a completely new light.
    It was not a light that reflected flatteringly on her husband. Despite her offering him a hundred openings, he had chosen to keep what was, in terms of a marriage, a monstrous secret. He had lied to her again and again through his silences, his pretense of going to work, his clandestine gambling of all they had.
    This couldn’t be her husband, her James, the man who had brought her a cup of coffee every morning since the day they married. Who always filled the house with peonies, her favorite flower, on her birthdays. Who, for years, had designated alone time with each child one Sunday a month to go to a museum or a ball game or wherever his son or daughter might want. He was a straight arrow and honest to a fault. Meg would have bet her life—the lives of her children—that he couldn’t have donesuch a thing. Knowing she would have lost such a bet made her blood run cold.
    The sound of the screen door opening brought her back to the moment. She watched James emerge into the morning air, holding his own mug of coffee. He wore the same clothes from the day before and was unshaved, his hair uncombed. It was obvious that he, too, had passed a sleepless night. She wondered if he was feeling hungover from all that Scotch. She hoped so. The sight of her handsome husband usually had a warming effect on her, a combination of love, attraction, and comfort. All that was over. Today she felt only anger and the stabbing pain of betrayal.
    “I saw you through the window,” he said as he drew closer. “What are you doing out here so early?”
    She didn’t reply. He sat down on the chair next to her. “Good coffee. Thanks for making it.” He glanced down at her feet. “Aren’t your slippers getting wet out here?”
    She looked over at him in disbelief. “Are we
chatting
?”
    His voice suddenly reflected his fatigue. “Look, it won’t do us any good to go at each other. We’ll have to work this all out, and