The morning after I uncovered my husband’s affair, I packed every suit, watch, and pair of shoes he owned into 2 suitcases and wheeled them into his office during the Monday staff meeting. “You wanted him? Take him,” I told his young intern. The room fell silent… until she pressed a thick envelope into my hands and said, “He never told you who’s really been paying for all of this.”

I hadn’t lost those skills. I had simply put them in storage.

I closed the messaging app, returning the laptop to the exact, precise pixelated state in which he had left it. I walked slowly up the sweeping, hardwood staircase and entered his massive, custom-built master closet.

I reached up to the highest shelf and pulled down two massive, heavy-duty, hard-shell travel suitcases. I laid them open on the floor.

I did not pack my things. I was not running away. I was not going to a hotel to cry to my mother.

I began to methodically, surgically pack his life.

I packed his $5,000 Italian suits, folding them carelessly. I threw in his custom-made leather oxfords, his silk ties, and his collection of silver cufflinks. I packed his heavy, expensive bottles of cologne. I packed the physical, tangible manifestation of “Adrian Beckett, CEO.”

I was not fleeing. I was packing him up for delivery. And I was about to execute a legal and financial apocalypse that would erase his entire existence from the corporate world before the sun set tomorrow.