The morning began with a strange, intrusive smell of expensive perfume. It hung in the air of our master bedroom, heavy and uninvited—a smell that most certainly wasn’t for me.
It was a woodsy, aggressive fragrance, the kind that screamed of synthetic bravado and mid-life desperation. I stood in the doorway, a ghost in my own home, watching my husband, Julian, stand in front of the full-length mirror. He was meticulously straightening the collar of his crisp, white Italian cotton shirt, smoothing down the fabric with a reverence he hadn’t shown me in years. He adjusted his posture, sucking in his stomach, tilting his chin to check his jawline. He was behaving precisely as if he were going on an important, thrilling date.
