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really remember. He says it didn’t start until
later- January, February- when they worked on a project together.”
    “What’s her name?” Ashley repeated. She pulled out her
phone. “Tell me her name.”
    “Nikki,” I whispered, so quietly that she asked me to repeat
myself. “Nicole Wilson.” There. It was out there.
    “Is she from here?” asked Megan. “Did we go to high school
with her? I don’t remember her.”
    Ashley was furiously scrolling on her phone. “Um...give me a
minute. Nikki Wilson. I think this is her. Oh, fuck him. He’s Facebook friends
with her. She liked a picture of your kids! I can’t. Who does that? Oh,
excellent, she’s an idiot too. Her page is completely open.” She started
typing.
    “What are you doing?” I asked her, alarmed. Ashley was on
her third glass of wine at this point, and when she drank, she could go a
little crazy. As if she couldn’t go crazy enough on her own without alcohol
helping her along.
    “Just commenting on some of her pictures,” said Ashley.
“Calling her a slut. Homewrecker.”
    “Ashley!” I protested. “Don’t. This girl is going to be- be
my kids’ stepmother or something.” At that thought, I burst into tears again.
    “You have to do something,” said Ashley. “You cannot just
sit back and let everything happen to you.”
    “But I want to take the high road,” I sniffled.
    “The high road?” Ashley rolled her eyes. “The high road is
another word for being a doormat. You can’t let him just go do whatever he
wants while you sit there and wait for his lawyers to tell you how much you’re
going to get in child support. You need to do something. Okay, maybe you don’t
need to go out and have revenge sex with the first bathed man you see. But you
need to do something. Megan is right. We need to take a vacation and get away
from all this and just get your mind off things. Look, I can take time off anytime.
I’m a self-employed real estate agent. As long as I don’t have any showing
booked, I can take off whenever. As long as it’s a couple weeks out I’m clear.
Becca, you finish school in a week or two too, don’t you?”
    “Next week is our last week,” confirmed Becca, who taught
third grade. “We have a couple days of meetings after that, but then I’m free
too.”
    We all turned to look at Megan, who worked in accounting.
“I’ll have to request the time off,” she said. “I’ll have to see Monday at work
what dates I’m free.”
    I almost told them not to bother. I almost told them it was
okay, I’d just stay home and cry under the covers all day while Henry and
Olivia were at my parents’. But just as I was opening my mouth to tell them no,
don’t bother, a very small “okay” popped out instead.

Chapter Five
    T he first step was for Megan to book the days off.
We picked a week at the end of June, a month away. Once she’d confirmed that
she could get the time off, I called my parents and asked if they could watch
Henry and Olivia while I went on a trip with the girls.
    “Of course, honey,” said my mom sympathetically. “You need
some time to get away and have fun. We’ll do our best to keep the kids busy.
Where are you going?”
    “Thanks,” I said. “I think we’re planning to go to Vegas. But
also maybe a beach in Florida somewhere. Just somewhere we can go and not have
to think about everything that’s happening.” I sighed. “I just- I never saw it
coming, Mom, you know? I mean- things weren’t perfect, nothing ever is. But I
was happy, overall. I thought he was happy. We had our ups and downs and little
fights, but no marriage is perfect, and I thought he was just preoccupied with
being busy at work and adjusting to his new position. I figured things would
calm down eventually- buying a house and moving is stressful, and once we got
through that I figured that he’d get used to the new workload and the position,
the kids would adjust, we could spend some time over the