The phone rang. A voice on the other end said: “Your husband’s had an accident. But that’s not all…

The telephone rang, and a voice on the other end announced, Your husband has been in an accident. But that isnt all It sounded rehearsed, cold and bureaucratic, as if the speaker were reading from a script. I felt my blood run cold. Before I could ask what it meant, the voice added, You need to come to the hospital. Hes conscious, but there was someone else with him.

I fled the house without my coat, in flipflops, clutching the keys in one hand and the phone in the other. On the pavement I seized the first black cab that pulled up. The driver gave me a puzzled look, as if Id lost my mind. All I could think was: who was the other person? Who could they have been? Mark was supposed to be returning from a business trip, or at least thats what he had told me.

At the Royal London Hospital they escorted me to the admissions ward. The nurse gave me a look I recognised from filmssympathy, embarrassment, and a desperate wish to end the conversation quickly. He was involved in a roadtraffic collision, she said. No fractures, but hes badly bruised and suffered a concussion. Hes in the observation room. The woman she was in the car with him. She died at the scene.

I was bewildered. What woman? A colleague? A hitchhiker? Mark never stopped for strangers, never talked to people he didnt know. He never did anything without a reason.

I entered the observation room. He lay there with a bandage across his forehead, his face scratched, an IV drip attached. When he saw me he looked away. Hello, he whispered. And in that instant everything inside me shattered. Who was she? I demanded. A work colleague? He stayed silent. After a moment he said, Now isnt the time. But I already knew.

The following day, when they were preparing to discharge him, he finally told me the truth. She was Sophie. Wed been seeing each other for a year. She was supposed to go back to her husband, but she wanted to say goodbye to me. I drove her home, was going a bit fast, and we left the road. He spoke as calmly as if describing the weather. Then he added, I didnt want you to find out like this.

I returned to our flat with a hollow feeling. The kitchen still held the same halfdrunk cup of tea, his slippers were still under the radiator. Yet everything had changed. Mark tried to pretend life would fall back into place, that everything would right itself. I could not sleep in the same bed, could not breathe the same air.

Sophie was thirtynine, a mother of two, I learned from an online article. Her husband appeared on the local news, saying he could not understand what had happened, that Sophie had been happy and they had been planning a holiday. I stared at the screen and felt I should have been the one sitting thereme, the woman who knew nothing.

I shut myself away. I stopped eating, stopped answering calls. My daughter came one afternoon and said, Mum, you have to do something about this. But what? He had cheated. He had fallen in love, and in the crash had killed the woman he loved. What now?

Two weeks later Mark began talking again about saving our marriage. It was no longer a dialogue between two people; it was a monologue from a man with nowhere to go. He never wept for Sophie, never spoke of her, as if trying to erase her from memory. I felt as though a part of me had diedthe part that had trusted him.

At last I packed a suitcase and went to stay with my sister. I said only, I dont know how long this will last, but I cant be the backdrop to his lies any longer. Mark was left alone. He called, he texted, once even showed up with a bouquet, but I was no longer the same woman.