I thought of the last six months: the late nights I'd pulled at the firm, not for some grand ambition, but for the house-fund spreadsheet pinned to our fridge. Her dream home: a porch, a big yard, a kitchen with a double oven. Every extra hour was a brick in that future. I'd come home tired, my head full of contract clauses, to find her already in bed, facing away, phone glow on her cheeks.
"Long day," I'd whisper.
"Mm, you're always tired now."
Then the new lexicon, phrases that felt foreign on her tongue: "You have to speak my love language, James. I need a partner who feeds my energy, not drains it." They were accusations wrapped in therapy-speak, always delivered with a sigh that made my support feel like a burden.
The night it crystallized was two weeks ago. I'd found a receipt in her jeans while doing laundry—a $300 charge from the Laurier, a downtown hotel bar. When I'd asked gently if she'd had a work thing there, her reaction was a masterpiece. She'd spun, hands on hips: "God, are you checking up on me now? Can I have a drink with a friend without the third degree? This is exactly why I feel suffocated."
I'd backed down, apologized. This "suffocated" line was a kryptonite she'd recently discovered.
But tonight, the trip I'd left for yesterday—the regional audit in Cincinnati—got canceled last minute due to a client emergency. I'd driven home thinking maybe I'd surprise her, order that fancy sushi she liked, open a bottle of wine, and just talk. Really talk.
The house was dark. Her car was in the driveway. An odd stillness hung in the air. I called her name. Nothing.
That's when I saw it: on the entryway table, a matchbook from the Laurier, perched neatly on top of her discarded clutch. It wasn't hidden; it was placed. A tacit, almost arrogant clue.
So, I waited. I didn't pace. I didn't cry. I sat in the living room armchair in the dark, and I waited. The strange calm from the frozen lake filled me up.
She came in at 2:07 a.m. The click of her heels, the jangle of her keys, the smell of night air and a stranger's cologne. She flipped the light on, saw me, and jumped.
"Jesus, James, you scared me! What are you doing sitting in the dark?" Her voice was too loud, too sharp.
"Trip was canceled," I said, standing. "Where were you?"