It wasn’t until Clem was safely in her crib with the lights out and the baby monitor on that Andy let herself lose it. Although she’d only been home an hour, it already felt like a decade, and she wondered how she’d face the long night ahead. Not willing to let Max see her cry, she locked the bathroom door and stood under the shower for twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, the tears mingling with the hot water as her body shook with sobs. Max still wasn’t home when Andy finally stepped out of the shower and dressed herself in head-to-toe flannel. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that her face was a horror of crimson streaks, swollen cheeks, and bloodshot eyes. Her nose ran uncontrollably. The word she hadn’t allowed herself to consciously think a single time in the year they’d been married kept forcing itself to the forefront of her mind: divorce. This time, there was no way around it. She would refuse to walk one more step. Remembering that she’d left her cell phone at Emily’s, Andy picked up the landline and dialed Jill at home.
