The next day, Stef and Lena studiously avoided each other. More errands and household chores got done than in the previous month combined. Stef took off early for a long run to the beach, and Lena viciously weeded the flower beds until it was time to face the music.

Without speaking, they took their usual positions on the beach. They had adopted a habit of sitting next to each other in the sand, facing the water. It allowed them to talk without having to look at each other, which made it easier to say some of the things they needed to say, but it kept them separated. They had not consistently adhered to the book's advice about eye contact, and the space between them now felt like miles.

Neither Stef nor Lena read ahead in the book, opting to respond naturally to its questions rather than prepare. Therefore, both were taken off-guard when Chapter Five, entitled 'Grounded in Trust,' turned out to be the 'if-there-has-been-infidelity' chapter.

So much for avoidance, Lena thought.

Stef read haltingly, "'This chapter is designed to help you work through the imbalance caused when one partner has participated in an extra-relational liaison. You may skip this chapter if it does not apply to you."

Here, she paused. Lena had described it as one kiss, initiated by Monte, which might not meet most people's definition of an affair. Or whatever non-judgemental term the book chose to use. But, especially in the wake of last night's events, Stef still felt betrayed. She knew there was an emotional connection between the two, however fleeting the physical element was. It was clear that Lena meant something to Monte, and that had injected doubt into Stef's understanding of Lena's perspective.

Lena waited, hoping Stef would suggest skipping it, but not expecting she would. She had avoided this reckoning so far, and after their conversation last night it was finally time to face it.

Stef made no comment, only continued reading in a stronger voice, "'The next chapter will focus on getting to the root causes of the conflict that led you and your partner to seek out this book. It is important there be some resolution to the matter of infidelity, so that a meaningful conversation can be had at that point. If one partner remains focused on the infidelity, it will be difficult to identify the true cause of the cracks in your relationship's foundation. The question we will encourage you to ask each other in this and the next chapter is "What is underneath this?" We want you to dig deeper into the ground of your relationship and you own motivations to truly understand your dissatisfaction. Begin with the question "How did this happen?" and continue to explore until both parties feel they have identified the real source of the infidelity. Often, it is not the reason either partner expects.'"

Lena's head felt like it was spinning. She was already feeling defensive, trying to plan her answers to the questions in such a way that she could minimize her actions and get through the conversation quickly. She wasn't unaware enough not to recognize how unfair this was - there was so much she wanted to hold Stef accountable for - but when faced with her own poor choices her natural instinct was to deflect.

Stef knew this conversation was necessary, but she feared what Lena would say. Somehow, it felt like this would be harder on her than Lena. She would have to hear all the reasons another woman was more appealing than she was. No amount of righteous indignation would balance that out.

So she was already close to tears when she looked at Lena and asked, "How did this happen?"

Lena's own lip trembled as she saw how devastated Stef was. She hadn't allowed herself to imagine being in Stef's shoes - what if it were Stef who had kissed someone else? Now the guilt hit her like a punch in the gut, and she had no idea how to respond.

She turned her head back towards the water and simply started with a factual rendition: "Monte and I had gotten close in the previous few weeks, with the stress of the funding situation and the fight over curriculum and test scores. When she came to tell me we had gotten the grant I was so happy, and we drank some champagne. I told her I wasn't thrilled about Ana being at Mariana's dance competition or about adopting the baby, and that I was worried about our marriage. She gave me a hug, and then she kissed me. I pushed her away, and we pretended it never happened. We haven't talked about it since."

Stef didn't know where to dig first. Lena just revealed she hadn't been excited about the baby, but it was Monte who told Stef Lena reconsidered their decision not to adopt in the first place. Stef had only ever done what she thought Lena wanted, even when it changed inexplicably. Yet it was Monte Lena had talked to first.

Her ego led her to ask a different question instead. "What's underneath? Were you - are you - attracted to her?"

Lena wanted to say no, but lying wouldn't help them move forward.

"Yes. I was." She answered without looking at Stef, unable to stomach seeing how that admission would affect her wife.

"Why?" Stef choked out. "We've been together for almost thirteen years. We just got married! Am I not who you want anymore? How did this happen?" She repeated.

Lena considered before she answered. "It felt like you and I were so far apart. You were doing things, things with serious consequences, on your own and you weren't talking to me about them."

"What does that have to do with you being attracted to another woman?" Stef turned towards Lena, the better to communicate her anger. "You kiss someone else, and you're the one who's thinking about leaving, and all I hear is it's my fault. You cheated on me, and all I want is for you to stay. How messed up is that?"

"I didn't cheat -" Lena began, uncomfortable with that description of her behavior.

"But you did." Stef cut her off. "Maybe there was just one kiss, but I could see what was happening between the two of you. All I heard was how great Monte was, how smart, how insightful. The woman doesn't have any kids, but you were taking her advice about Brandon going on tour. Why do you think I insisted on having her over for dinner? I needed to see if what I was afraid of was true."

"And what was that?"

"That you were interested in her - and she in you."

Lena sighed, unable to deny it but frustrated at Stef's lack of action. "If you saw it, why didn't you say anything?"

Stef sat silently for a full minute. Finally, she answered. "What if you admitted it? What if I called you out on it and you said yes, you were attracted to Monte and wanted to leave me for her?"

Lena took the question as rhetorical. She let Stef continue.

"What if, barely a year after I got married a second time, I got divorced again? What if I failed again?" She shook her head. "There's something karmic about the woman I cheated with cheating on me."

"Is that how you see me? As the woman you cheated with?" Lena wasn't sympathetic to Stef's defeatist attitude. "Did you even want to marry me in the first place? Do you regret that? If you hadn't married me, then there would be no stigma of a second divorce? Things could end and it would somehow be less devastating for everyone involved?"

She didn't let Stef interrupt as she continued, "Are you fighting for us out of stubbornness or because you really still love me?"

Stef's eyes blazed as she finally got to respond. "How can you even ask that? What have I done to indicate to you I didn't want to be with you? I've bent over backwards to do what you wanted. 'Let's have a baby!' 'Let's not adopt Ana's baby!' 'No, wait, let's do adopt Ana's baby!' I can barely keep up, but still I chase."

Only pausing for a breath, she continued, "Don't try to put your dissatisfaction on me. Do you even like me anymore, or do you just tolerate me because the alternative is too messy and terrifying to consider?"

Stef put her head in her hands. "We can work out the parenting thing - the kids can stay in the house and we can alternate weeks with them or something - but spare me the indignity of staying with me out of pity or convenience."

Lena's eyes narrowed. "So now you're going to roll over and give up? Is it easier if it feels like your choice instead of mine? You may not have cheated on me, but you violated my trust as well - more than once. So don't act like you're the only wronged party in this relationship."

Stef's shoulders remained slumped, but she lifted her head to look at the ocean. Her voice was quiet when she spoke. "Do you want to know why I did the things you say violated your trust? I've had a lot of time to think about them lately. Yes, I blackmailed Robert, and yes, I worked to get Callie emancipated without talking to you."

She wiped her eyes, and Lena realized for the first time Stef was truly crying. "I couldn't do anything to save Frankie. You wanted her so much, and so did I, and I had to stand there and watch as we lost her. When Robert wanted to take Callie away, I couldn't even think about losing another child. So I did anything I could to keep her. You may not like how I went about it, but I'm not sorry it worked. I kept our family together."

Lena was stunned into silence. She hadn't considered how little Stef had been allowed to grieve Frankie's loss and how little she had attempted to understand Stef's motivations around maintaining Callie in their home. In these recent months, her own grief had made her self-absorbed, and she ascribed the worst possible motivations to Stef's behavior. That, in turn, allowed her to feel justified in deepening her friendship with Monte.

It was getting dark, and Lena knew they had done all the work they could for one night. It was time to take responsibility for her actions with Monte so they could focus on whatever it was underneath it all that led them to the brink.

She turned to look at Stef. "I said it that first night, but I'll say it again because you need to hear it. I'm sorry. Our issues are ours, and I should have talked to you about my concerns, rather than sharing them outside our marriage."

Stef broke eye contact, but squeezed Lena's hand. "I accept your apology. And I choose to believe your attraction to Monte isn't - wasn't - anywhere near the root of our issues. It hurts like crazy that it's how things played out, but I can get over it. What scares me is that there's something deeper going on that makes you unhappy, but I still don't know what it is. I do know we have to figure it out if we even have a chance of moving forward together, but I'm terrified that when we get down to it it'll be too big for us to overcome. We can't stop hiding from it, though. We have to understand it or we'll never be okay."

Lena was impressed with Stef's level of self-reflection and insight. She couldn't say the same about herself. She really didn't know what it was at the root of her unease, and she hoped the next chapter would help them figure it out.

"Wow, you're really getting a lot out of this book." Lena hoped Stef took her words as validating, not teasing, but it was hard to make out Stef's expression in the dark.

Stef stood up and brushed herself off. "It's not an exaggeration to say my life - at least, my way of life - depends on it."

Stef retreated into herself the next week, doing her best to seem normal around the kids, but not saying much to Lena in the few moments they were alone together. She suggested a movie for family night, so she wouldn't have to fake being okay. Speaking her grief aloud had opened the door to those feelings she had stuffed away, and, once opened, she couldn't seem to put them away. Frankie's due date was approaching, and she lamented that she and Lena wouldn't likely be able to commemorate it together. Not the way they should.

Part of her resented Lena for that, even as she knew how painful it still was for her wife. She felt it was Lena who had pulled away, who had shut Stef out emotionally. Stef wasn't foolish enough to believe her own actions in recent months were completely acceptable, but she had a feeling they would have ended up in this place either way. It devastated her that Lena was so dissatisfied she would consider ending their relationship. Lena hadn't even said it aloud, but it was clear in her actions, written between the lines of the things she didn't say, that it was on the table. That a very possible outcome of the work they were doing was that Lena would walk away.

The root of her own actions, however misguided some of them were, was a commitment to her family. She had done things to achieve the ends she believed Lena wanted, and she didn't know what else she could do. Mike's advice was in her mind as she contemplated this. How much more could she chase her wife's desires, when Lena didn't seem to know what they really were? What more would she lose of herself in the process? When did her desires take precedence? What was it she even desired?

An intact family, with everyone safe and happy and healthy. That family included Lena - it wasn't their family without her. Stef didn't want her out of habit or fear of failure - she loved Lena with her whole heart. The excitement of falling in love had worn off, as it had to, but the depth of her feelings for Lena had grown exponentially. But did Lena still feel the same way? What would Stef do if she didn't?

Lena saw the way Stef withdrew, and she accepted that she was the cause. She had hurt the woman she loved, the lover she married, the mother of her children, and she still wasn't sure why. It was because she didn't yet have an explanation she didn't attempt to engage with Stef between beach sessions. She had nothing of substance to say - repeating her apologies for kissing Monte wouldn't have helped, though she had to bite her tongue every time she saw the pain on Stef's face.

Losing Frankie had been devastating, and Lena knew it was a major contributor to her feeling of dissatisfaction, but it wasn't the root. If it were, she would have brought Stef into her grief. Instead, she pushed her away. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't logical, and she hoped their exercises Saturday would finally get them to the bottom of things. She didn't want to avoid it anymore. Stef was right - they needed to figure things out. Only then could they move forward - what direction that would be in, she still wasn't sure.

Every night, Stef faced away from her in the bed, curled into herself on her side. Lena began to stay up until after Stef went to sleep, so she could slip in beside her and wrap her arms around her wife. It was affection she knew Stef wouldn't be comfortable with in the daylight, but she couldn't help it. To see Stef in such pain and to not be able to do anything to help was too much.

Every morning, they woke up with some part of their bodies still touching. Neither mentioned it, yet neither retreated from it. It sustained them in their uncertainty, this contact. It reassured them the other was still there, still beside them. For now.