Even in his wildest imaginings of what the future might hold, Ben had never contemplated such a dramatic turn of events as what she suggested. Confessing to Aldous and getting dragged to the solicitor's office, while Ministry investigators trailed after Mel? No, when he'd been considering divorce he'd been thinking they would go to a solicitor together, quietly. They wouldn't tell his brothers anything until after it was done, and afterwards Ben would tell them whatever he needed to in order to make peace with them — but never the truth. He cared too much about Melody to throw her under the bus like that — and if they were going to get divorced, it would have been because he really thought it was what would make both of them happier than staying together in this marriage.

She didn't want that, but even hearing everything she had to say about it, Ben wasn't convinced that getting a divorce wasn't the best shot they had at happiness. Four days ago, he'd been talking quite seriously about throwing everything away and going on a bender, for no other reason than he could. Melody, his marriage, and this veneer of respectability they had was the only thing standing between him and self-destruction. Could it do so indefinitely, or were they just a few short years away from what was happening now with Arthur and Desdemona? Stony silence in the house, him barely sober, her miserable...

Ben turned and leaned against the sideboard and took a drink.

"I don't know how to be happy," he said after a moment. "I wish I was any good at divination. I don't know what to do."