I sat near the back of the hotel conference room, my laptop open to a slide I had already stopped reading, thinking about how sweetly my seven-year-old daughter, Ava, had smiled when she waved goodbye to me that morning.
My husband of 11 years, Owen, had carried my bag to the car.
He was the kind of man people pointed to as an example. Bills paid before I noticed them. Squeaky hinges fixed before I thought to ask. My mother loved him more than she admitted.
“He’s a good man. Quiet men are safest, Clara,” she used to tell me.
I believed that, but I was about to find out that I’d been wrong.
I sat near the back of the hotel conference room, my laptop open to a slide.
The presenter clicked to a new slide. Someone near the front nodded seriously.