The walls of our cozy kitchen felt like they were shrinking, suffocating me. “You’re leaving?” My voice was a fragile, trembling thing. “You’re leaving us—the children—for a woman you’ve never met?”

He nodded slowly, a terrible, final motion. “I don’t expect you to understand. But I need to do this for myself.” He promised financial support, a hollow gesture that meant nothing when he was carving out our family’s heart. He needed to “follow his

heart,” he said, and meet the “love of his life.”