When my husband told me he was leaving, we were sitting in our den. I looked around at the polished shelves, the TV and VCR, piles of The New Yorker and Business Week. The accumulation of ten years of marriage, mostly his.

“I’ve made the arrangements,” he told me. “I’ll rent an apartment.”

I ran my eyes along his encyclopedias, photos he’d taken of whitewashed churches in Greece, a crusty turquoise horse from some ancient dynasty. “All this is yours,” I said.

“We can settle that when the time comes …”

“You stay here,” I told him. “I’ll go.”

This took him by surprise. “Do you want that?”

A terrible feeling had taken hold of me. I searched the room for things of my own and found nothing but things my husband had given me: a kimono pinned to the wall, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, a set of Greek worry beads.'

“What have I got to lose?” I said.

He sighed. “Don’t be a martyr.”