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inane banter of the evening DJs and switched it off again. My thoughts returned to Grady and his humiliating accusation. In place of the anger I’d first felt, I was consumed by an unrelenting sadness.
    Was my marriage over? Did I want it to be? Was hetoo greedy, too needy, or was I the selfish one? I could no longer be sure.
    When I got home, I found a fully clothed Grady sitting on the toilet seat with his face in his hands. I walked into the bathroom and propped against the bathroom sink. “We need to talk.”
    “Not now,” he mumbled.
    “Yes, Grady, now.”
    For some reason, I found myself staring at our reflections in the mirrored shower door. This wasn’t love. Not anymore. This was something scary and angry and bitter and heartbreaking. I was tired of walking a minefield every time I stepped through my front door. Still, the words jolted me when I spoke them out loud. “Grady, I’m leaving.”
    His blond head snapped up. “What? Necie, no!” Tears filled his eyes, and I twisted around, unable to look at him.
    “I can’t live like this anymore. It’s killing me.”
    “Necie—”
    I hugged myself and faced him. I felt like I was outside myself. This couldn’t be me. This cool, flat voice didn’t even sound like me. “Grady, you had no right. I’ve never cheated on you, and I’ve never given you reason to think I have.”
    His face reddened, whether from embarrassment or anger, I couldn’t tell. I could no longer read him.
    “You’re never here,” he said. “What was I supposed to think?”
    That was pretty weak. He sounded like a petulant child, and that snapped me out of the numbness that enveloped me. I threw my arms wide. “Never here? We’ve spent more time together in the past few days than we ever have.”
    He glared at me. “There’s a difference between spending time with me and killing time until you have an excuse to leave again. Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t feel that?”
    “That’s not true,” I said, battling to speak over the lump in my throat. “I want to be with you, but…”
    “But what?”
    “You’re suffocating me.”
    “You’re abandoning me!” he yelled.
    I rubbed my forehead. Neither of us said anything for a long moment. How could this have happened to us? I felt almost desperate to understand. “It didn’t use to be like this, not as bad. Why now, Grady? Why do you need me so much after all these years?”
    He gave a bitter laugh. “You make me feel so pathetic. What am I supposed to say, Denise? Maybe the real question is why you don’t need me anymore. How do you think it makes me feel, knowing that if Bill or any of those other people you work with called you right now, you’d be out the door, and I can’t even get youto sit down to a family meal with me?”
    His words tore at me. I walked over and knelt in front of him. “Grady, you know what that was about. One of my friends was missing, and the person responsible was my own father. I had to be there.”
    “Okay, fine. Forget all that. Barnes is in jail. You’ve told me all this time that’s what you wanted, that’s what you were working toward, but I can’t even get you to take a leave of absence.”
    “I never said I wouldn’t.”
    “You didn’t have to say it. When I suggested we have another baby, you went as rigid as a wall.”
    “That wasn’t because of my job,” I said softly. “It was because of your drinking. You have a problem, Grady. Can’t you see it’s getting worse?”
    He stared at the floor. With a sigh, I turned to leave.
    “What if I quit drinking?” he said. “Would you stay? I don’t want to split up our family, Necie. If I quit drinking, will you take a few months off, let us see if we can fix this thing?”
    A million thoughts ran through my head, most of them concerning Abby. Shouldn’t I do everything in my power to keep us together, for her?
    Turning back to Grady, I said, “Yes.”
    “What?”
    I cleared my throat. “If