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…
