Chapter 3
I could feel him listening.
Finally he said, “I got in pretty late.”
I spread jam across the edge of my toast.
“Okay.”
There was another silence.
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Okay.”
Emma’s eyes lifted again.
Daniel frowned.
For years, he had complained that my questions were exhausting.
Now he seemed offended by their absence.
“You’re not going to ask?”
I looked at him.
“Ask what?”
He gave a small disbelieving laugh.
“What time I got home. Where I was. Who I was with. The usual.”
There it was.
The usual.
As though my distress had become another household ritual.
Coffee.
Eggs.
Toast.
And Claire asking her husband why he hadn’t come home.
I picked up my coffee.
“No.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
It was subtle.
Someone who didn’t know him would probably have missed it.
But I had spent twenty-six years knowing that face.
The slight tightening around his mouth.
The way his eyes searched mine when he expected to find something and didn’t.
“You don’t care?”
I could have lied.
Instead I said, “I don’t think there’s anything useful left for me to ask.”
Emma went completely still.
Daniel looked at her, embarrassed now.
“This isn’t a conversation for breakfast.”
I almost smiled.
He had made it a conversation.
I had been perfectly happy discussing Emma’s final project.
“I agree,” I said.
Then I turned back to our daughter.
Emma waited several seconds before continuing her story.
Daniel finally made himself a plate.
He sat at the far end of the table.
For perhaps five minutes, we ate in silence.
What I remember most is not anger.
I wasn’t angry.
That was what scared him.
Anger would have been familiar.
He knew what to do with anger.
Defend.
Deflect.
Counterattack.
Leave the room.
Come back later with flowers or takeout.
Tell me I was overreacting.
Tell me work had been stressful.
Tell me we needed a weekend away.
Silence gave him nothing to push against.
After breakfast, Emma helped me load the dishwasher.
Daniel lingered nearby.
Twice he opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something.
Twice he stopped.
When Emma left, he followed me into the laundry room.
“Claire.”
I folded one of my sweaters.
“What?”
“Are we okay?”
I looked at him.
That question would once have broken something open inside me.
I had spent months begging him to ask it.
Instead I said, “No.”