My fork stopped halfway to my mouth when I saw Sarah in the corner of the Italian place on Maple Street. She sat with a man I did not know. Their knees almost touched. His hand covered hers. She leaned in as if the table belonged only to them. Mark was the neighbor who shoveled walks, fixed fences, and remembered birthdays. Watching her laugh with someone else felt like watching a theft, even though their marriage was not mine. By the time the forty-two-dollar bill arrived, I had decided that telling Mark would be protection, not gossip. I walked into the cold certain I was doing the right thing.
For days I practiced the speech. Before I could find him, Sarah found me in a coffee shop on a wet morning. She looked thinner. Her color was gone.
