small, leather-bound notebook filled with his engineering sketches, and a single, faded photograph of us, smiling in Central Park. The rest, th

l bag-ostensibly for a weekend art retreat I' d hastily invented-slung over my shoulder. His eyes

ion, you know. For my art." He scrutinised me for a moment longer, then, to my surpri

ouble. Speaking of which, the merger party is

. "I wouldn't miss it for the world." My words held a doubl

My fingers moved with a new urgency, a desperate need to create something real, something that spoke my truth. I painted a lone figure, a woman, standing at the edge of a precipice, a

punctuation mark on a painful, protracted sentence. I felt a

ing slightly, the scent of expensive whiskey preceding him. He was disheveled, tie as

his hand reaching out, his fingers fumbling. "Where have you been,

He saw me, but he saw her. The humiliation was a fresh, se

gainst mine. I lay rigid, numb, a doll in his hands. His rough stubble scraped against my che

hoked with a twisted longing, his hands f

t was the final, devastating blow. Any lingering flicker of affection, any shred of the love I once held