I ended my 36-year marriage after I discovered secret hotel rooms and thousands of dollars missing from our account—and my husband refused to explain himself. I thought I’d made peace with that decision. Then, at his funeral, his father got drunk and told me I had it all wrong.
Troy and I had known each other since we were five.
Our families lived next door to each other, so we grew up together—same yard, same school, same everything. Lately, my thoughts keep circling back to our childhood: playing outside during summers that felt endless yet somehow never long enough, school dances, and moments that once seemed ordinary.
We had what looked like a storybook life. And I should’ve known that kind of perfection couldn’t exist without cracks—that something had to be rotting beneath the surface.
