It was 4 A.M. and I was walking home from the bar with another man’s wife. I’d been in love with her since she was a little girl, but my good friend had snapped her up very young. I never had a chance. They’d been married ten years, had two boys, and were settled in a house in the town where I grew up. Her husband worked long hours, swam Olympic laps of beer. I’d been traveling, hadn’t seen her in a long time. My parents had just separated, abruptly and disastrously, and I’d taken my father’s side. My mother had left him for another man.