I am almost sixty years old and I am married to a man of thirty years my youngest.

I was fifty-nine when I realized that the sweetest habit of my marriage was perhaps the most calculated lie of my life.

My husband, Mason, was thirty years younger than me. When we got married, I was fifty-three and he was twenty-three, with the radiant and charming face of this natural ease of nature for young men who know that the world still belongs to them. I ran a thriving real estate agency in Connecticut, I had an adult daughter who lived in Chicago and had already survived a long marriage that ended in a more heavy silence than in anger. Mason worked in the gym where I trained after my divorce. He was the one who made the first move. And he continued to do so. He said I calmed him. He said I was the only woman who ever really understood him. The first time he called me his little woman, I laughed.

For six years, he brought me a glass of water every night.

Always the same ritual. After checking the doors, he would go up, put the glass on my bedside table, lay a kiss on my temple and whisper: “Drink well, my little one. Sometimes he added two white vitamins to the set and reminded me not to forget them. I thought it was affection. I thought it was one of those intimate rituals that couples institute when their love has resisted the judgment of others.

For six years, I slept like a strain.