When I unexpectedly came home in the middle of the afternoon, my 5-year-old daughter ran over, hugged me, and said, “Daddy, Mommy and her boss have been ‘working’ in your bedroom almost all afternoon!”
When I unexpectedly came home in the middle of the afternoon, my five-year-old daughter ran across the foyer, wrapped both arms around my waist, and announced that Mommy and her boss had been “working” in our bedroom almost all afternoon. My wife appeared halfway down the staircase with her shirt buttoned unevenly, saw me standing beside my suitcase, and stopped so abruptly that her hand tightened around the railing. “She’s five,” Lauren said. “Please don’t believe everything she tells you.” I looked at our daughter, Ava. Ava was still smiling. She had no idea she had just changed the atmosphere inside our house. My flight from Chicago had landed three hours early after the final meeting of my business trip was canceled, and I had decided not to call Lauren because I thought surprising her and Ava would be a nice way to end the week. Instead, I had walked into something that instantly felt wrong. A second coffee mug sat on the entryway table. A black leather briefcase rested near...