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rarely came to bed before midnight and fell asleep the second his head hit the pillow. They hadn’t had a night out on their own for months now. If he’d been a different kind of man she’d have wondered if he was having an affair, but she knew his work was his only mistress. Accepting that didn’t seem to stop the increasing resentment she was feeling.
    She took one more look at the gaping hole in the hedge and shook her head. On the bright side, it would take her less time to wander over to sit in Marcie’s pristine kitchen with a cup of her special-blend coffee and a slice of her homemade key lime pie. Lately that had become her refuge from the emptiness she felt every day when she got home from school and faced one more night on her own.
    On her bad days, she envied Marcie. She was everything Emily was not. She thrived on being a housewife, a room-mother in her kids’ classrooms, an officer in thePTA. Her spotless house could have been a designer showcase. There wasn’t a speck of dust that Emily had ever seen, much less a magazine out of place, a dirty glass in the sink or smelly socks or sneakers tossed on the floor. By comparison, the best that could be said of Emily’s home was that it looked lived in. The last time she’d baked, she’d burned the chocolate-chip cookies. Dirty clothes overflowed the baskets in the laundry room and dishes were left wherever anyone set them down until Emily rounded them up.
    Back inside, she headed for Derek’s office and found him punching numbers into a calculator. When she spoke, his head snapped up and he muttered a curse at the interruption.
    “Sorry,” she said. “I thought maybe we could talk.”
    “I’m in the middle of something.”
    “You’re always in the middle of something. Do I need to make an appointment to get on your calendar?” She couldn’t seem to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
    It hadn’t always been like this. When she and Derek had met in college, she’d admired his drive and ambition. They’d spent long hours talking about his goal of owning his own company someday, not just some little mom-and-pop business, but a corporation. Her parents had been impressed with his single-minded determination, as well.
    “He’ll go places,” her father had told her when she’d announced their engagement. “He’ll be a good provider.”
    And he had been. He was vice president of sales at a multinational corporation based in Coral Gables. Their home off Old Cutler Road was in a neighborhood known for its lush landscaping, architectural diversity, upper-income families and good schools. She and their kids wanted for nothing.
    If she longed for the kind of conversations they used to have or for the passion they’d once shared, maybe she was expecting too much. Maybe this was the way things were supposed to be after twelve years of marriage.
    Then she thought of the affection still evident in her parents’ marriage after more than thirty years and knew she was wrong. She and Derek were missing the best years of their lives. They were occasional roommates, not partners.
    “Let’s go out to dinner tonight,” she suggested impulsively, draping her arms around his neck from behind and leaning down to press a kiss to his cheek. He smelled faintly of his favorite musky aftershave. “Just you and me. I’ll see if the kids can stay with the Carters.”
    “I’m beat,” he said, linking his fingers through hers. “I don’t feel like going out. Invite the Carters over for a barbecue instead. We’ll throw some steaks or some salmon on the grill, hot dogs for the kids. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
    Emily barely managed to contain a sigh. It wasn’t the evening she had had in mind, but it was a concession, especially since she knew Derek wasn’t all that crazy about Ken Carter. Truthfully, she wasn’t either. She didn’t like the way he put down his wife at every turn, mocking her devotion to him and the kids and their home, a devotion he