By Diane Williams, from FINE, FINE, FINE, FINE, FINE, a story collection out next year from McSweeney’s. Williams’s story “Living Deluxe” appeared in the June 2013 issue of Harper’s Magazine.

It should have been nicer — our friendships, our travel, our romances secretly lived — if we weren’t so old. But still it was an interesting situation to be in.

We all but ignored the wife’s tears — which could have filled a small bottle.

And the wife was petite and well groomed and I knew why she was crying. She thought her trials were all about adultery at that time.

As the…