Lauren brought the children to Reading today. After lunch, she disappeared. Soon after she returned a few hours later, she wanted to go back to London. “I am tired of not knowing what will happen with us,” she told me sullenly. All I could tell her in return was that this was not the right time to discuss our future. Half-an-hour after they left, I went to congratulate his forty-fifth birthday to one of our next-door neighbors. One of the women at the small party immediately caught my eye. At least twenty years my junior, tall and slim, wearing her dark hair long and loose, and dressed in black from head to toe, she looked like London rather than Reading. I was careful not to betray my interest, but she surprised me with a long, daring stare when no-one was looking. She made sure I noticed her interest. Walking back home, I realized my marriage was doomed. “A few more years…,” I heard myself reason.