While the adults in the reception hall murmured condolences over half-empty cups of lukewarm coffee, my four-year-old son, Ben, crawled under the banquet tables, blissfully unaware of the tangled grief and tension hanging over the room.
When he popped back up a moment later, something in his face had changed. He tugged softly at the hem of my black dress, leaned toward my ear, and whispered words so simple yet shattering:
“Mommy… I saw Daddy touching another lady’s leg.”
For one frozen moment, I scrambled to dismiss it — a misunderstanding, a childish misinterpretation, a moment taken out of context. But Ben raised his small hand and pointed directly across the room at Rachel, the woman who had been a “longtime family friend” of Arthur’s. In an instant, all the little warning signs I had brushed aside for months snapped together: the sudden overtime shifts, the phone that stayed face-down the second he walked through the door, the way he and Rachel always seemed to drift toward each other at gatherings when they thought no one was looking.Continue reading…
