"I shared a taxi with a woman who couldn't stop talking about her married boyfriend — then she showed me his picture. It had been one of those exhausting days when all I wanted was to get home. The rain was pouring, and every taxi in the city was booked."

The rain came down hard enough to erase the edges of Manhattan.

After fourteen hours in the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian, I stood beneath a leaking awning on West Fifty-Ninth Street, watching occupied taxis spray dirty water across the curb.

My shoes were soaked. My shoulders ached. All I wanted was a hot shower, ten quiet minutes with my daughter, and the familiar predictability of the Upper West Side apartment I had shared with my husband for twelve years.

A yellow cab finally stopped.

The driver lowered the passenger window.

“Uptown. You mind sharing?”

I was too cold to object.

A young woman moved across the backseat to make room. She appeared to be in her late twenties, with dark auburn hair, an expensive camel coat, and the flushed happiness of someone carrying good news she could not keep inside.

“I’m sorry,” she said as I closed the door. “I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I’m in such a good mood that I haven’t stopped talking all night.”

I gave her the tired smile hospital workers learn to use when they have nothing left to offer but politeness.

“Good moods are rare. You should keep yours.”

That was all the encouragement she needed.

Her name was Lena Brooks. She worked in corporate events and had spent the evening inspecting a hotel ballroom near Columbus Circle.

She was also in love.

“He’s older,” she said, leaning her head against the rain-streaked window. “And technically he’s still married.”

Technically.

The word bothered me, though I did not yet know why.

“I know how it sounds,” she continued. “But the marriage has been over for years. They have separate bedrooms. Separate lives. They’re only together because their finances are complicated.”

I watched the wet storefronts slide past.

I had heard versions of the same story from patients, colleagues, and friends. A married man described his home as a prison. A younger woman believed she was not destroying a marriage because the marriage had supposedly died before she arrived.

“He promises he’ll file next month,” Lena said. “There are business assets and an apartment involved. His wife is apparently very difficult about money.”

A dull irritation moved through me on behalf of a woman I had never met.

“Has he shown you any paperwork?”

Lena laughed softly.

“You sound like my sister.”

“Your sister sounds practical.”

“He has a lawyer. I don’t ask for every detail. I want him to know I trust him.”

Outside, brake lights glowed through the rain.

“He’s wonderful,” she continued. “He sends me white peonies every Friday. They’re my favorite now.”

Something cold formed beneath my ribs.

Marcus bought white peonies.

Not every Friday.

Not for me.

He brought them home whenever he wanted the apartment to feel peaceful before discussing money.

The flowers came from a shop near his office.

I told myself Manhattan contained thousands of married men and thousands of white peonies.

Then Lena smiled.

“No matter how busy he gets, he calls me every night at ten-thirty. He always steps somewhere quiet so I’m the last voice he hears before he sleeps.”

My husband left our apartment at ten-thirty almost every night.

He claimed the overseas investors at Vance Calder Properties could speak only after the markets opened in Asia. He took those calls from the garage beneath our building because, according to him, our daughter’s music and my hospital schedule made the apartment too distracting.

I shifted in my seat.

Coincidences existed.

Exhaustion made patterns where none existed.

I asked Lena about her work.

She answered briefly before returning to him.

“He notices everything,” she said. “The music I like. The way I take my coffee. Even stupid details. Last week, I mentioned I’d never had a real Christmas tree growing up, and he said next December we could choose one together.”

My throat tightened.

Marcus had promised our ten-year-old daughter, Sophie, that next Christmas we would rent a farmhouse in Vermont and cut down our own tree.

I looked at Lena’s reflection in the window.

She was not cruel.

She was hopeful.

That made the possibility more painful.

“I know you must think I’m naïve,” she said.

“I think married people should complete their endings before asking someone else to begin a new life with them.”

Her smile weakened.

“He says he’s trying.”

The cab hit a deep pothole as Lena reached into her purse.

“I have a picture. You’ll understand when you see him.”

Her phone slipped from her hand and landed face down on the rubber mat.

She retrieved it before the screen turned toward me.

I exhaled slowly.

My heart had begun beating as if I were standing beside a trauma bed instead of sitting inside a taxi.

The driver turned onto my block.

Our apartment building appeared ahead, its limestone entrance glowing beneath brass lamps. The sixth-floor windows were lit.

Home.

Lena touched my sleeve.

“I’ve talked about myself for twenty minutes. Are you married?”

My hand rested on the door handle.

“Yes.”

“What’s your husband like?”

I looked at the rain sliding across the glass.

“We’ve been married twelve years.”

“That’s amazing.”

“His name is Marcus.”

She continued smiling.

“Marcus Vance.”

The smile disappeared.

The change was so complete that it looked physical.

Color drained from Lena’s cheeks. Her lips parted, but no sound came.

Rain hammered the roof.

The driver glanced at us in the mirror.

Lena slowly unlocked her phone.

This time, she turned the screen toward me.

Marcus stood beside a kitchen island in an apartment I had never seen. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows. He was holding a glass of wine and smiling at the person taking the picture.

He wore the watch I had given him on our tenth anniversary.

Behind him, white peonies filled a crystal vase.

Lena’s voice broke.

“He told me his wife was named Claire.”

My name.

I stared at the photograph.

“He said you moved out last year,” she whispered. “He said you only came back to the apartment when your daughter was there.”

My hand tightened around the door handle.

“I live there.”

The taxi had stopped in front of my building.

Lena looked past me toward the illuminated windows.

“He said that was his apartment.”