Part 1
The night my husband was smiling at another woman over candlelight and a bottle of Pinot he probably charged to one of his business accounts, I was in the nursery on my knees, sorting baby socks by color like that kind of control could protect me from anything.
The room smelled like fresh paint and lavender detergent. I had painted the walls myself in late September, one careful roller stroke at a time, while Nathan stood in the doorway with a coffee cup and told me I should sit down more often. He said it like concern. Nathan said a lot of things in a concerned voice that were really instructions.
By October, I was eight months pregnant, sleeping badly, and moving through our six-bedroom house in Westport like I was carrying not just a child but the whole weight of the life I had agreed to build. Nathan loved that house. Loved the symmetry of it, the white columns, the iron lanterns by the front door, the way guests always paused in the foyer and said wow before they saw the rest.
He loved rooms that made people think he was a certain kind of man.