The kitchen light was still yellow that morning, the way it always is before the sun makes it honest. I laid out two sandwiches, apple slices, a thermos, and slid a note under the napkin the way I had since the first year of our marriage. Elliot sat on the counter, nine years old, swinging his heels against the cabinet door.

He said I should stop. He said his school bus passed a corner where his father set the food down beside a trash can, then changed into the charcoal suit from our wedding and got into a woman’s car.
So the next morning I followed. At 6:48 Marcus pulled over. He set the lunch down carefully, the way you set down something for someone. Then he took my note out, read it slowly, folded it, and put it in his pocket. Fifteen minutes later a dark blue car came, and I followed it across the city to a building I had never seen.