The morning of our divorce, my husband walked in with his mistress on his arm—both dressed like they’d already claimed the life they thought they stole from me.

Mateo develops a laugh that erupts out of him like surprise. He likes ceiling fans, bananas, and the crinkling sound of book pages. He hates socks and being set down when he is in a clingy mood, which is often. Your world reorganizes itself around naps and bottles and the soft tyranny of love. You are more tired than you have ever been and somehow more awake too.

And one bright June afternoon, you run into Rebecca.

Not by design. Fate is rarely that theatrical. It happens at a garden center just outside the city where you have gone to buy herbs for the kitchen window boxes because the house deserves things that grow. Mateo is in his stroller, waving one sockless foot in the air like he has opinions about basil.

Rebecca is at the checkout line with orchids.

Of course she is.

For a split second, both of you freeze. She looks immaculate in cream trousers and sunglasses pushed into her hair, but there is a strain around her mouth now, the afterimage of public embarrassment and private disillusionment. She takes in the stroller, the baby, the herbs, the wedding ring that is no longer on your hand, the peace on your face that she perhaps did not expect to survive her victory.

“You look…” she starts, then stops.

“Like someone buying rosemary?”

She almost smiles. Almost.

“I heard about Damian’s firm,” she says.

“I imagine a lot of people did.”

The cashier glances between you with the feral curiosity of retail workers who sense narrative. Rebecca shifts her grip on the orchids. “For what it’s worth,” she says quietly, “I didn’t know about the money.”

You look down at Mateo, who has discovered the strap of his stroller and is trying to eat it with deep conviction. Then you look back at her.

“I believe you,” you say.

That seems to surprise her more than accusation would have.

“But you knew enough,” you continue. “You knew he lied easily. You knew he hid things. You knew he was willing to watch his wife carry his child while he built another life behind her back. Maybe you didn’t know the numbers. But you knew the shape.”

Her face tightens.

You are not cruel. You are simply done protecting other people from the outlines of their choices.

After a moment, she nods. “Yes.”

There is nothing more to say after that.

You pay for the herbs. She buys the orchids. The cashier exhales as if disappointed you did not throw anything. Life, stubbornly uncinematic, moves on.