Later that night, Will asked me in private, Don’t you think you were too harsh on him?

And there it was. The first rift in our marriage.

Until that moment, there’d been no breaches in our relationship, no gaps, none that I knew about at least. Will and I were like diamonds, I thought, able to withstand the crushing pressures of marriage and family life.

I felt sorry for the way things had unfolded in the principal’s office. There was an awful pain in the pit of my stomach knowing that Otto had been enduring the bullying and abuse for so long and we didn’t know. I felt sad it had come to this, that my son thought taking a knife to school was his only option. But I was angry that he tried to lay the blame for it on me.

I told Will no, I didn’t think I was too harsh on Otto, and he said, He’s just a boy, Sadie. He made a mistake.

But some mistakes, I soon came to learn, couldn’t so easily be forgiven. Because it wasn’t two weeks later that I discovered Will was having an affair, that he’d been having an affair for quite some time.

Next came the news of Alice’s death. I wasn’t sure, but Will was. It was time to leave.

Happenstance, he called it.

Everything happens for a reason, he said.

Will promised me we could be happy in Maine, that we just needed to leave behind everything that happened in Chicago and start fresh, though of course it struck me as ironic that our happiness came at Alice’s expense.

As we sit now at the table, eating the last of our dinner, I find myself staring out the dark window above the kitchen sink. Thinking about Imogen and the Baines family, about Officer Berg’s accusation this morning, I wonder if we can ever be happy here, or if bad luck is destined to follow us wherever we go.

CAMILLE

After that first time together, my meetups with Will became a regular thing. There were other hotel rooms, ones that became more fancy the more I begged. I didn’t like the hotels he first took me to. They were dank, dingy, cheap. The rooms had stuffy smells to them. The sheets were scratchy and thin. They had stains on them. I heard people on the other side of the walls; they heard me.

I deserved more than that. I was too good for budget hotels, for the criticism of a minimally paid staff. I was special and deserved to be treated as such. Will should have known that by then. I dropped a hint one afternoon.

I’ve always dreamed of seeing the inside of the Waldorf, I said.

The Waldorf? he asked, standing before me, laughing at my suggestion. We were deep in the alcove of an apartment complex where no one could see us. We never talked about his marriage. It was one of those things that’s just there. One of those things you don’t want to believe is there, like death, aliens, malaria.

The Waldorf Astoria? he asked when I suggested it. You know that’s like four hundred dollars a night, maybe more.

I asked, pouting, Am I not worth that to you?

As it turned out, I was. Because within an hour’s time, we had a room on the tenth floor, champagne compliments of room service.

There’s nothing, Will said as he opened the door to the lavish hotel suite and let me in, that I wouldn’t do for you.

In the room, there was a fireplace, a terrace, a mini bar, a fancy bathtub where I could soak, staring out at the views of the city from the luxury of a bubble bath.

The hotel staff referred to us as Mr. and Mrs. Foust.

Enjoy your stay, Mr. and Mrs. Foust.

I imagined a world where I was Mrs. Foust. Where I lived in Will’s home with him, where I carried and raised his babies. It was a good life.

But I didn’t ever want to be mistaken for Sadie. I was so much better than Sadie.

Will meant what he said: that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for me. He proved it time and again. He showered me with sweet nothings. He wrote me love notes. He bought me things.

When no one was there, he brought me to his home. It was far different than the gloomy apartment where Sadie and I used to live, that two-bedroom in Uptown where drunks and bums hung around, accosting us for money when we stepped outside, not that we had any to spare. Even if I did, I wasn’t about to share. I’m not known for my generosity. But Sadie was, always digging away in her purse, and they clung to her, the drunks and the bums did, like lice to hair.

They tried the same with me. I told them to fuck off.

Inside Will and Sadie’s home, I ran my hands across the arm of a leather sofa, fondled glass vases and candelabras and such, all clearly expensive. The Sadie I once knew could never afford these things. A doctor’s salary came with all the perks.

Will led the way to the bedroom. I followed along.

There was a picture of Sadie and him on a bedside table, a wedding picture. It was charming, really. In the picture, they were standing in the center of a street. They were sharply in focus while the rest of the picture gradually blurred. The trees canopied over them, full of springtime blooms. They weren’t facing the camera, smiling cheesy grins at some photographer’s request like most brides and grooms do. Instead, they were leaned into each other, kissing. Her eyes were closed, while his watched her. He stared at her like she was the most beautiful woman in the world. His hand was wrapped around the small of her back, hers pressed to his chest. There was a spray of rice in the air. For prosperity, fertility and good fortune.

Will caught me looking at the picture.

To save face I said, Your wife’s pretty, as if I’d never seen her before. But Sadie was a far cry from pretty. She was ordinary at best.

He wore a hangdog look, said, I think so.

I told myself he had to say that. That it wouldn’t be right for him to say anything else.

But he didn’t mean it.

He came to me, ran his hands through my hair, kissed me deeply. You’re beautiful, he said, the superlative form of pretty, which meant I was prettier than her.

Will led me to the bed, tossed pillows to the ground.