Dani Shapiro

That they hadn't had a real marriage in years.

That she was undergoing electroshock treatment in a clinic outside Philadelphia.

That he had cancer and had to fly to Houston three days a week for chemotherapy.

That his youngest daughter, age three, had a rare form of childhood leukemia.

That he could not get a divorce for all of the above reasons.

That he was heartbroken that he could not leave his wife and marry me.

For a long time, I believed him.

With every bone in my body, I trusted that Lenny Cline was telling me the truth.

When we talked about it, his jaw would tighten and his big brown eyes would fill with tears.

His voice would quaver with pent-up, complex feelings that I couldn't possibly begin to understand.

Poor Lenny.

I marveled that so many bad things could happen to one person, and I vowed to take care of him.

I exhorted myself to be a real woman, one who could step up to the plate and be good to her man in his moment of crisis.

Years later, I hold Lenny's lies up to the light and examine my own reasons for believing what in retrospect seems preposterous.

I reread my old journals and noticed the way my girlish handwriting deteriorated into a scrawl as I wrote, I have to be there for Lenny.

He needs me, and he's going through so much.

I don't know if I can handle it, but I have to be strong.

I try to remember that Lenny was a trial lawyer, that he built an international reputation based on his own pathology, that he lied was an almost evangelical conviction.

He prided himself on being able to convince anyone of anything.

The lies had small beginnings.