For three months, my husband barely spoke to me, and I was preparing to end our marriage. Then I heard him crying beside our sleeping baby, whispering that he had to leave before I found out. I walked into the nursery and asked what he had been hiding.
Every night, my husband came home, and every night, I missed him.
That Thursday, I reheated the same cup of tea twice while I waited for him.
Lily was finally asleep. The dishwasher hummed, and the baby monitor cast a blue square across the couch cushion.
I missed him.
Before she was born, we sat there with our feet tangled together, complaining about work until one of us started laughing.
The couch still had a pale stain from the night my water broke.
Ryan had wanted to clean it immediately, until I told him perhaps the hospital should come first.
We sat there with our feet tangled together.
He’d laughed all the way to the car, terrified and happy.
I sat over that stain now and listened to him brushing his teeth upstairs.
Now, I rehearsed things to say; the neighbor’s dog had escaped again. Lily had tried sweet potatoes.
Nothing difficult. Nothing that might make him leave.
I rehearsed things to say.
Ryan came downstairs and picked up a clean bottle from the drying rack.
“She’s down?” he asked.
“Almost an hour.”
“Good.”
Ryan came downstairs.
He inspected the bottle, although he’d washed it himself.
“Ryan, can we please talk?”
“About what, Hannah?”
“About us. You’ve barely spoken to me in three months.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Can we please talk?”
“We’re both tired. Lily’s only seven months old, and neither of us sleeps much. But you won’t even kiss me anymore.”
“Hannah, please. Not tonight.”
“Then when?”
He put the bottle down carefully.
“Then when?”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No, sweetheart. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
That nearly undid me. He used to call me sweetheart while stealing fries off my plate.
“Then why are you treating me like this?”
“I can’t explain it right now.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Is there someone else?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Then what is it?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Then what is it?”
“Please. Just give me a little more time.”
“Could we at least get dinner Saturday? My sister could watch Lily.”
He shook his head and went upstairs.
After he went upstairs, I poured the tea away.
“Give me more time.”
His mother arrived the next afternoon carrying a casserole and using the doorbell with her elbow.
“There are my babies,” she said when Ryan opened the door.
She kissed his cheek, then cooed at Lily.
“Hello, Diane,” I said.
“There are my babies.”
“Oh, hi, honey. Could you take this?”
The dish was still warm. I carried it into the kitchen with my sleeves pulled over my hands.
Four months earlier, Diane had been in our house almost every day.
She folded laundry, rearranged cupboards, and stayed through dinner.
“Could you take this?”
I’d eventually asked her to call before visiting.
I wanted evenings when Ryan and I could learn to be parents without someone correcting us.
She’d said she understood.
Ryan had even backed me up. He’d put an arm around my waist and told her we needed to find our feet.
She’d said she understood.
For weeks afterward, I’d wondered whether he’d regretted that.
Maybe he thought I was ungrateful.
Maybe his silence was something I could fix by letting his mother back in.
I’d nearly called to invite her twice.
That afternoon, Ryan sat beside her while she bounced Lily.
I’d nearly called to invite her twice.
He answered questions about his boss, his commute, a restaurant near his office.
I’d asked about that restaurant the week before. He’d said he couldn’t remember its name.
When Lily needed changing, I took her upstairs.
Their voices stopped when I returned.
“Did I interrupt something?”
Their voices stopped
“Of course not,” Diane said. “We were just talking.”
Ryan reached for Lily without looking at me.
At the door, while Ryan fetched the clean dish from a previous meal Diane had brought us, I lowered my voice.
“Of course not,”
