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telling you.”
    I shook my head. How ironic, I thought. Andrew was the one who cheated, but I now hold the final card.
    â€œI don’t even know this girl. I know nothing about her. Why would I pass over fifty thousand dollars to a total stranger?”
    â€œYou’re very right,” James Coburn agreed. “You’re certainly justified in your thinking. However, I do want you to know something else. I have an updated contact number for Fiona Caldwell that was given to me by the bank. They are handling her mother’s estate and had been in touch with Fiona. The bank manager told her about the account set up by her father, and she contacted me. We spoke for quite a while, and like you, she had many questions that I wasn’t able to answer.”
    When I remained silent, he went on.
    â€œThis has all been quite shocking for you, and I certainly understand the anger and betrayal you must be feeling. I don’t know you at all, but just from speaking with you on the phone, I have no doubt that you’re a good person. I would just like you to bear in mind . . . no matter what happened, no matter the terrible wrong that your husband and Bianca Caldwell committed, Fiona Caldwell is the innocent victim of two adults behaving badly. She had asked me for your name and phone number, but I didn’t feel at liberty to share that with her. She then asked if I would give you her number and requested that you call her.”
    After a few moments, I said, “Give me her number.”

9
    A fter hanging up the phone with James Coburn, I walked out to the patio, plunked onto a lounge, and stared out at the water. What the hell had my life come to?
    So I now had confirmation that not only had Andrew been unfaithful but that union had resulted in the birth of a daughter. A daughter he had chosen to tell me nothing about. It was then that the irony hit me. After the birth of our two sons, I would have liked to try once more for a girl. I recalled how Andrew had not welcomed this idea. He felt two children were enough. We should be thankful that we had two healthy sons, he had said. Although I truly would have welcomed a daughter, I didn’t push the subject.
    No wonder, I thought. He already had that third child that he was paying for, and it just happened to be a daughter. His daughter. Not mine.
    I forced myself to think back to that summer of 1993. For whatever reason, our marriage seemed to be on shaky ground. We argued a lot over seemingly trivial matters; we no longer pursued activities that we both used to enjoy; our sex life had come to a virtual standstill. Plain and simple, we were drifting apart. So when Andrew had told me about the offer to teach a summer class at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, I’d thought the time apart might do us both some good.
    I walked into the house, filled the kettle with water, and placed a teabag in a mug. Leaning against the counter, waiting for the kettle to boil, I remembered that when he had returned home almost three months later, things had seemed to improve.
    I had spent a lot of that summer with the boys at my parents’ home on Cedar Key. By the time Andrew returned in late August, both of us were refreshed and definitely happy to see each other, and there appeared to be a subtle shift in our relationship. Thinking about it now, I wondered if perhaps acceptance was what had been acquired. Acceptance of each other, acceptance of our life together, and acceptance of a marriage and love that had always lacked a certain romance and passion.
    The whistling of the kettle cut into my thoughts. After pouring water into the mug, I took my tea, along with the papers on the counter, and went back out to the patio.
    I let out a deep sigh and allowed myself to breathe in the warm October air. Butterflies flitted on one of the flowering bushes at the side of the patio. I looked above me to see a bright blue sky dotted here and there with white puffy