Chapter 1

The funeral was a quiet affair, a stark contrast to the noise that had filled my life. My husband, David Vance, stood by the freshly dug grave, his face a mask of dignified grief. He was a diplomat, after all, skilled at presenting the right emotion at the right time. But I knew him. I saw the hollowness in his eyes, the subtle impatience in the way he checked his watch when he thought no one was looking. My death was an inconvenience, a brief, unfortunate interruption to his very important life.

They said I was forgotten, a ghost even before I died. My own sister, Clara, clung to David' s arm, her sobs theatrical and loud, yet her eyes were dry. She was always the favored one, the one our parents adored. My existence had simply been a footnote in her story.

The memory of our 30th wedding anniversary was sharp, a shard of glass in my mind. We were driving. An argument, cold and clipped, had filled the car. Then, screeching tires, a violent jolt, and darkness. I woke up in a hospital bed to two devastating truths. David had survived with minor injuries. And he had been having an affair. The police officer, trying to be gentle, handed me David's phone, which had been recovered from the car. It was filled with messages, not from me, but from his lover. The date of the crash, our anniversary, was just another day for him to plan a secret rendezvous.

That knowledge was a poison that seeped into my veins, paralyzing me with a grief far deeper than the loss of a husband. It was the loss of a life I had endured, a life built on a lie. The whispers at the funeral confirmed it. "She never got over that scandal, you know," one of David's colleagues murmured to another. "Forced into the marriage to save face. Poor woman." Another added, "Clara was the one he always wanted. It's a shame, really."

The shame was mine. The loneliness was mine. The empty decades were mine. So I decided the end would be mine, too. Back in our cold, silent house, I walked to the bathroom. My movements were precise, almost ceremonial. I filled the tub with warm water. I laid out the bottle of sleeping pills on the white tile, a neat row of tiny soldiers. I swallowed them, one by one, with a detached calm. There was no hesitation. This was not a cry for help. It was a final, quiet act of surrender.

I woke up with a gasp, the sunlight blinding. The air smelled of lemon polish and old books, a scent I hadn't smelled in years. I was in a bed, but it wasn't mine. It was the bed from our first apartment, the one we lived in right after we got married. My hands, when I held them up, were smooth and unlined. I scrambled out of bed and looked in the mirror. A young woman of twenty-two stared back, her face pale but uncreased by time. The calendar on the wall read: October 1982. Three months into my marriage.

The bedroom door opened. David stood there, younger than I had seen him in decades, his face handsome and impossibly remote. He held out a piece of paper. "My mother wants us over for dinner tonight. Be ready by seven." He didn't look at me. He just placed the paper on the dresser and turned to leave. His voice was the same, cold and transactional. It was the voice of a stranger.

That evening, the Vance family home was just as oppressive as I remembered. David' s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Vance Sr., presided over the dinner table like twin judges. My own parents were there, their smiles tight and false. "Eleanor, you must be making David happy," my mother said, her voice laced with a familiar warning. "You know how much our family owes the Vances for their understanding." The old accusation hung in the air: that I had trapped their precious Clara's intended, that I was a disgrace who had to be tolerated.

Clara, seated beside me, placed a hand on my arm. "Don't worry, Mother. I'm sure Eleanor is trying her best. It must be hard, after all." The feigned sympathy was more cutting than any insult. I looked from her face to my mother' s, then to my father' s averted gaze. The same anger, the same helplessness I had felt for thirty years, began to bubble up inside me. But this time was different. I was not that helpless girl anymore. I had lived a lifetime of their neglect. I put down my fork, the clatter loud in the tense silence. I looked directly at my father. "Trying my best? Is that what you call it when you force your daughter into a marriage to protect your reputation?"

His face went pale. My mother gasped. "Eleanor! What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," I continued, my voice steady and clear, "that I am done being the family scapegoat. You wanted this marriage, not me. You can stop pretending to care about my happiness now."