“How are the children handling the affair?”
Everything in my life became a reaction.
Eventually I became tired of being the consequence of other people's choices.
So I started choosing again.
Small things.
Painted the bedroom.
Booked a trip with Sophie.
Joined a Saturday hiking group.
Stopped attending events I hated.
Started teaching a financial-literacy workshop at the community center after discovering how badly I understood some of my own marriage's paperwork.
Dawson joked:
“Your divorce turned you into an accountant.”
I said:
“Trauma has terrible hobbies.”
He laughed.
Dawson and I never became romantically involved.
People kept expecting it.
Two betrayed spouses.
Shared enemy.
Neat ending.
No.
He became my friend.
A real one.
The kind who could call and say:
“Oliver has a school project involving plants and I have killed everything I've ever watered.”
Then I'd send Max over.
We did not need romance to justify caring about one another.
