Sarah had been married for nearly a decade when she met Paul one evening at a restaurant halfway across the country from the town she called home. They were both traveling on business, and as she waited for her coworker to show up, Sarah and Paul discovered they lived within a few miles of each other, had kids about the same age, and had attended the same school. They said their good nights when Sarah’s colleague arrived, but Paul emailed her the next day. Sarah felt a thrill she hadn’t experienced in years as she read it. The message itself was tame, but, she told me, “the fact that he was
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