If Selena's marriage had been a mirage, her family was the oasis that evaporated at her touch. In the days that followed, she learned, piecemeal, that her mother had known of Luke's affair.
Selena confronted her mother, voice trembling. "How long have you known?"
Her mother's reply was brittle. "He was confused. He made a mistake. People do."
Selena's siblings, too, had been complicit in a web of silence, shielding Luke for the sake of appearances. The betrayal was layered—her pain discounted, her agency erased in the service of propriety. Selena wandered through her childhood home, every picture on the wall now a mocking reflection of the unity she had been denied.
The isolation became total. It was not just her marriage that had broken, but the very roots from which she had drawn sustenance. Selena realised she was utterly, devastatingly alone.