The first gift after his affair was a coat. I had not requested it, but I knew why he brought it. Petar stood at the door with a bag and the expression of someone hoping an object could say what he kept getting wrong. I said the coat changed nothing. Nevertheless, I wore it the next day. It was warm, beautiful, and expensive enough to give me a moment's satisfaction unrelated to love.

Over the following weeks we talked extensively. He ended the other relationship and asked whether I wanted to try continuing our marriage. I said yes, although I was already looking at apartments I could rent alone. I did not yet know when I would leave. I knew I imagined no shared future. I concealed that difference because, for the first time, his guilt gave me power I did not want to relinquish immediately.

I began mentioning things I had previously postponed. A new computer, a trip with a friend, the armchair I had admired for ages. Petar agreed to almost everything. I never called a gift the price of forgiveness, but let him believe I drew closer whenever I thanked him. My hurt was real. What I did with it was something else, although I tried not to make the distinction.

An offer to buy a smaller apartment where we could start again stopped me. Petar had already set money aside and wanted us to choose a neighborhood together. Sitting opposite him, I realized acceptance would require a much larger lie than smiling over a coat. I wondered how far I intended to let someone build something in which I had already decided not to live.

I said I did not want to stay. At first Petar thought the old pain had flared again. Then I admitted knowing it while accepting his attempts to keep me. He was furious. I did not let that erase his affair, but neither did I use his affair to erase my decision to entice him with false reconciliation. Two ugly truths remained at the same table.

We divided our shared belongings more slowly than I had imagined. We even argued over the coat, not because of its price but because of everything we had both assigned to it. In the end I left it behind. One cold morning I emerged from my new apartment in an old jacket and, for the first time, felt no need to turn my dissatisfaction into something somebody else would have to purchase. The pain remained, but at least it had its proper name again.