I took the ring off in the car.
The gold band left a pale dent in my skin, a ghost of Nathan still sitting on my finger while I walked toward the side door like a woman going to evening mass and meaning none of it. My purse was light. The ring was in the inner pocket, wrapped in a tissue, as if cloth could make adultery quieter. My mouth was dry. Everything else was not.
The church had emptied badly. A last old woman lingered near the candles. A boy stacked hymnals. Father Elias stood at the edge of the sanctuary in the same cassock from the booth, same face as the man who had kissed me at our wedding, and when his eyes found my bare left hand the air between us went thin.
He did not smile.
He tipped his head toward the sacristy.
I followed him through a door the congregation did not
