I’m not sure if he chose it or if he understood somehow that it had been decided for him.
I did not sleep.
What I did instead was think about a pattern I had noticed over 4 years of marriage.
Not the big things, those were obvious in retrospect.
The way landmarks always look more obvious on the map after you’ve already passed them.
I thought about the small things.
The way my husband referred to my salary as your income and his as what I bring in, as though they were categorically different.
The way he never once attended a work event of mine, but expected me at every firm happy hour, every holiday party, every dinner with clients I had nothing to say to.
The way his mother called our house phone, we still had a house phone at her insistence.
And when I answered, she would say, “Oh, is my son home?”
Not hello.
Not my name.
Just is my son there.
I thought about the colleague.
I thought about how long I had let myself use the word colleague.
In the morning, I called my own mother.
She is a woman who has never in her life wasted a syllable on a feeling she wasn’t certain of.
And when I finished explaining, she was quiet for a moment and then she said, “What do you need?”
Not what happened.
Not are you sure?
