“James, how do you feel about that?” Dr. Hall asked.

“I don’t blame her. There’s no reason why she should trust me.”

“I want to,” Sheila said softly. She sat next to me on the sofa, but it so far away. “We’ve been married for ten years, and we dated for two before that. Should the fact that he’s been seeing someone else for the last two years diminish that?”

“Do they?” I asked.

“Yes,” she sobbed into a tissue.

“Then I guess they should. You wouldn’t feel that way by choice.”

“I just -” she stopped to cry into a new tissue. “I feel like there must’ve been something missing in order for you to fall in love with her.”

“She didn’t nag me to take out the trash, fix things, take care of -.”

“Nag?”

“Sometimes, you have a tendency -.”

“Because I remind you to improve our lives and our children’s lives, you have an affair?”

“It’s not a direct correlation,â€? I began.

“Direct correlation,” she snorted. “If she spent any amount of time waiting for you to do something -.”

“I know.”