The woman is an editor, was an editor. She laughs and corrects herself. I meet her at a party in Washington, D.C. She’s tall and blond and holds a glass of white wine in her manicured hands. I tell her I’m working on a book about divorce, and her eyes narrow.

“I want one of those,” she tells me in a whisper. “A divorce. I want to leave.”

She’s married to a very wealthy man, she tells me, and all she has to do is take care of the children and read books and go to parties with him looking beautiful.

“I think, actually, it would be a problem for him if I did try to do something more,” she says. She thinks she should feel lucky, but she tells me she lives in a beautiful trap.

“Then you should go,” I tell her.

Someone comes and whisks her away, and I don’t talk to her again until the party is winding down. She finds me to say it was nice to meet me. “Forget what I said about my husband, I didn’t mean it!” she tells me brightly.

I squeeze her hand, and I refuse to forget.