The roasted chicken is still warm when I hear his car pull into the driveway at midnight. I've been sitting here for four hours, watching the food go cold and then reheating it twice. The dining table is set the way David likes it — white tablecloth, good china, wine already poured. His favorite dishes arranged like an offering: chicken with herbs, roasted potatoes, the green beans he always requests. Everything perfect. The oncology report in my purse says I have six months to live. I haven't told him yet. I was going to tonight, over this dinner I spent all day preparing. I was going to say it gently, hold his hand across the table, tell him we'd fight this together the way we've fought through everything else in our twelve years of marriage. The front door opens and closes. His footsteps sound wrong — too slow, too heavy. When David walks into the dining room, I see it immediately. The smudge of coral lipstick on his collar. The way his tie is loosened but not the way he usually does it. The careful blankness in his eyes that means he's about to say something that will hurt me. "Cassie." His voice is flat. "We need to talk." I stand up, smoothing my dress. The report in my purse feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. "I made your favorite. I know it's late, but I thought we could—" "I'm filing for divorce in the morning." The words don't make sense at first. They're just sounds, syllables that can't possibly mean what they seem to mean. "What?" David doesn't sit down. He stays standing near the doorway like he might need to escape. "I should have done this months ago. I've been trying to find the right time, but there isn't one." My hand finds the back of my chair. The room tilts slightly. "David, what are you—" "Natalie's pregnant." Natalie. His assistant. The twenty-six-year-old who started working at his firm eight months ago. The one he said was "just a kid" when I asked if she was settling in okay. "It's mine," he continues, and his voice has that rehearsed quality that means he's practiced this. "We didn't plan it, but now that it's happening, I realize this is what I want. A fresh start. Someone who doesn't—" He stops himself. "Someone who doesn't what?" My voice sounds strange. Distant. "Someone who doesn't make everything so difficult." He loosens his tie further. "You know what I mean, Cassie. Every conversation is a negotiation. Every decision is a fight. I'm tired." I think about the report in my purse. Stage four. Metastatic. Six months if I'm lucky. I think about the hours I spent cooking this dinner. The way I ironed his favorite tablecloth this morning. The careful way I've been holding myself together all day, planning how to tell him, trying to find the right words. "How long?" I ask. "Does it matter?" "How long, David?" He shifts his weight. "Six months." Six months. The same amount of time the doctor says I have left. While I was going to appointments alone, getting test results alone, sitting in that cold office while Dr. Morrison explained what "metastatic" meant and how quickly it would spread — David was with her. "I'll make sure you're taken care of," he says, and he almost sounds kind. Almost. "The house is paid off. You can stay here. I'll cover the mortgage on my new place, and we can work out something fair for—" "Your new place." "I signed a lease last week." He won't meet my eyes. "I'm moving in this weekend. I wanted to tell you before, but—" "Before what? Before you knocked up your assistant? Before you decided our marriage was too difficult?" The anger feels good. It's better than the numbness. "Don't do this." His jaw tightens. "Don't make this harder than it has to be." "Make it harder?" I laugh, and it sounds wrong even to my own ears. "David, I'm not the one who—" "I know you're going to fight me on this." He finally looks at me, and his eyes are cold. "You always fight. But I'm done, Cassie. I'm done with the drama and the arguments and the way you make everything about you. Natalie is simple. She's easy. She's—" "Pregnant with your child while you're still married to me." "I'm fixing that tomorrow." He turns toward the hallway. "I'm sleeping in the guest room tonight. The lawyer's office is at ten. I need you there to sign the papers." He's halfway to the stairs when I speak again. "I have cancer." He stops. Doesn't turn around. "Stage four," I continue. My voice is steady now. Eerily steady. "I found out three weeks ago. I have six months to live. Maybe less." The silence stretches between us like a physical thing. Then David turns, and the expression on his face isn't shock or horror or grief. It's annoyance. "Jesus Christ, Cassie." He rubs his temples. "Even now. Even when I'm trying to leave, you have to find a way to make it about you." He walks upstairs without looking back. I stand in the dining room, surrounded by his favorite meal, still warm from the third reheating, and I realize something with perfect, terrible clarity: My husband doesn't believe me.