Chapter 2
A shadow passed over his face.
“Almost a year.”
My stomach tightened.
Almost a year.
The missed dinners. The anniversary he had forgotten until nearly midnight. The night he sat on the edge of our bed, trembling as though the room had become too small for him.
I had thought he was tired.
I had thought he was overwhelmed.
I had thought loving him meant making things easier by asking for less.
David touched the elevator button.
“Please,” he said. “Let me explain before you see him.”
“I’m not sure I want an explanation from you.”
“You deserve one.”
“From Marcus.”
“Yes.”
The elevator doors opened.
Neither of us moved.
David’s face had the exhausted look of someone who had been holding up a roof for too long and had finally realized it was beginning to collapse.
“He wanted to tell you himself,” David said. “He kept saying he needed to find the right time.”
“There is no right time for something you hide from your wife for a year.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked at me then.
“Yes.”
The elevator doors began to close. David reached out and stopped them.
“Please,” he repeated. “Come upstairs.”
I stepped inside.
The elevator smelled faintly of disinfectant and coffee. David stood beside me without speaking as the doors closed, sealing us into the small metal box.
I watched the numbers rise.
One.
Two.
Three.
By the time we reached the fifth floor, my hands had gone cold.
The consultation room was empty except for two chairs, a round table, and a box of tissues no one had touched. A narrow window overlooked the parking lot. From that height, the cars looked like scattered toys.
David closed the door behind us.
I set the lunch bag on the table.
The turkey sandwich felt absurdly hopeful sitting there between us.
David took the chair across from mine.
I remained standing.
“Start talking.”
He nodded.
“Last summer, Marcus began having problems with his hands.”
For a moment, I didn’t understand.
Then I remembered the morning he had dropped a coffee mug in the kitchen.
It had shattered against the tile.
He had stood there staring at the pieces while I hurried toward him.
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” he had said. “Just tired.”
He had insisted on cleaning it up himself.
I remembered the way his fingers had trembled as he swept the shards into the dustpan.