Tuesday, August 16, 8:15 PM. Amy.

Brewer’s been out all day, he’s not back, and it’s nearly dark. When he gets back I’m going to kill him. I’ve never been so worried in my life. He said he’d be back for supper at 7:30. If he’s not back by 9:00 I’m going to load up the kids and go looking for him. But if he was searching all over the metroplex he could be anywhere. We might have to drive all night to find him.

Why did I cheat on him? Why did I cheat on him? Maybe I deserve what’s coming, maybe I deserve all this.

When we were hiking in Colorado I told him the rest and asked him to forgive me. He told me he did. But he hasn’t, I know he hasn’t. How could he?

I can tell he doesn’t look at me the same way he used to. He’s always sad now. We all are, but he was even before the trip. All through July he was having headaches and dizziness, and I know it was the stress. I did that to him.

In fact, if anything he seems happier now that everything’s fallen apart. It’s almost as if he’s enjoying all this. He’s engaged with it, it challenges him. I already had plenty of challenge, raising kids and teaching at the college. But he was long past bored with coaching basketball and teaching biology year after year. It kept him busy, too busy, and I could see his soul shriveling away from me. There was nothing I could do. Or was there? We became very boring together.

God, Brewer, where are you?

And then there was Alan. Alan wasn’t boring; oh no, anything but boring. He was charming and dynamic and attentive and intelligent and dangerous—anything but boring. And I was tired and lost, depressed and sagging and safe, too safe. I remember one day, walking between classes, with the sun slicing down through the fog of a long winter, thinking, “I want to do something bad, really bad.” It was a little joke I was telling myself. But part of me meant it. I wanted to break out, to wear a black, slinky dress in place of my brown plaid skirt, to take one crazy risk in my long decade of playing it safe.

And then, Alan. To flirt, ever so slightly, felt like the right kind of risk. Then, a week or two later, to talk for half an hour in his office felt like the right kind of risk. Then, later, to go out for drinks after class felt like the right kind of risk. And later, to kiss, briefly, just once in the elevator, felt like the right kind of risk.

I got what I wanted. I got my danger. I destroyed my safety. I jabbed away boredom for a fleeting second with a red-hot poker fresh from the fire.

But boredom returned. And now, as my payment, for the rest of my life I’ll be a sullied woman. Dirty. Defiled. Never quite to be entirely cherished or trusted again.

I cut it off in May. I promised Brewer I wouldn’t see Alan again. And I haven’t.

And now everyone is gone. Brewer has me and no one else can take me.

Does that make everything all right? Does it take all temptation away, restore all trust?

No. It only makes it worse. Now there’s no way to prove my faithfulness, to prove myself to him or to Alan or to myself. There’s nothing to repent from and nowhere to repent to.

What if Brewer’s out there now? What if something has happened? I can’t help picturing it, upside down in the car, trying to move, no way to call.

Five more minutes, I’m going out.

What if he meant to do it? What if the thought of being trapped with me, bound to a sullied woman in an eternity of isolation led him to…to try…or to be careless, to be indifferent to danger, not to try…?

The door. It’s his voice. Oh thank God—.