My Wife's Affair (edition 2010)

For Mark,
with love

We try, we husbands and fathers, we really do. I just want to tell you that. We may not find the perfect triceratops pajamas on sale four months before the birthday; it wouldn't occur to us to set up a magic closet full of stickers and Silly Putty for them on days when they're sick or scared or we just love them so much. We don't always remember to ask about the swimming lessons or the spelling test, and we've been known to come home late at night and go straight to bed without looking in on the kids (how this appalled Georgie).

I admit all of this, but also say that when we walk in the door at the end of the working day we don't ask for peace and quiet and the day's mail, but instead - so grateful that they're ours - just for those little bodies coming at us in a rush.

I miss her, but nowhere near as much as I yearn for my son, whose story - far more important than Georgie's or Mrs. Jordan's or my own - played out along that insubstantial strand of passion that first joined, then broke, his parents' hearts.