Chương 3
“I’m not punishing you.”
“That’s exactly what this is.”
I hung my coat carefully. “A gift is something a person wants to give. I no longer wanted to give it.”
He stared at me, searching for an opening.
“You’ve made your point,” he said.
I went to the bedroom and closed the door.
For the next ten days, I removed myself from Evan’s life one ordinary piece at a time.
I stopped checking whether his dry cleaning was ready. I stopped adding his protein powder to the grocery order. I stopped reminding him to call his mother. I stopped replacing the sparkling water he liked and stopped arranging our schedules around his work dinners.
I cooked for myself twice. The first night, I made tomato soup and grilled cheese. The second, I roasted vegetables and ate them from the pan while standing at the counter.
Evan opened the refrigerator and stared into it.
“Is there nothing for dinner?”
“There’s food.”
“I mean prepared.”
I looked up from my book. “No.”
He shut the refrigerator.
“You could’ve told me.”
“You’re thirty-eight.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You know how dinner works.”
He laughed once, without humor. “This is unbelievable.”
But two days later he ordered groceries, and the world did not end.
He bought six avocados, all hard as rocks, three jars of pasta sauce, and no pasta. He complained that the app had substituted the wrong yogurt. I watched him argue with customer support from the couch while a college basketball game played silently on television.
For years, I had treated his inconveniences as emergencies. Now they remained inconveniences, and he had to live beside them.
He began studying me.
When I left for work, he asked when I would be home. When I went for a walk, he wanted to know my route. When I sat on the balcony with a blanket and tea, he came outside despite disliking the cold.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Looking at the city.”
“Why?”
I almost smiled. “It’s there.”
He pulled the door closed behind him and sat in the other chair.
Traffic moved below us, wet and red. A ferry slid across Elliott Bay, its lights pale against the water.
After a minute, Evan said, “Nick thinks you’re trying to scare me.”
I turned my head.
He realized his mistake too late.
“So you’ve been discussing me with Nick.”
“I talk to my friends.”
“Of course.”
“He asked how things were.”
“And you told him.”
“I said you were being distant.”
“Did he tell you why?”
Evan rubbed his hands together against the cold. “You’re proving their point by acting like this.”
“What point?”
“That you can’t handle criticism.”
I folded the blanket over my knees.
“What criticism should I be handling?”
“That maybe you’ve gotten comfortable.”
I looked at him.
He pressed on, encouraged by my silence. “You go to work, come home, read, make plans six months in advance. Everything has to be safe. Predictable.”
“Your MBA was safe?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“The years I supported us while you studied were comfortable?”
“I didn’t say you never did anything.”
“Turning down Chicago?”
“I never asked you to do that.”
“You said moving would destroy your career.”
“That’s different from asking.”
The absurdity of it made me stare.
He looked away first.
“I’m not saying you haven’t been supportive,” he muttered. “I’m saying maybe I need someone who pushes me.”
“I have pushed you.”
“To succeed. Not to live.”
A gust of wind lifted the edge of the blanket.
I thought of the rafting trip he had refused because the water looked rough. The dance class I had booked after he complained we never tried new things. The dinner parties I had hosted for his colleagues while he hid in the bathroom before guests arrived because socializing made him anxious.
Evan liked the appearance of risk. He liked stories about spontaneity after someone else had made the reservations.
“Then live,” I said.
He leaned back. “You keep saying things like that.”
“Because you keep asking me to release you from responsibilities you’re pretending are chains.”
His mouth tightened.
I gathered the blanket and stood.
“You know what your problem is?” he said.
“No.”
“You think being needed is the same as being loved.”
The words struck harder because part of me feared they were true.
I went inside without answering.
That night I opened my résumé.
The document had not been updated in four years. My last promotion was missing. So were two major projects, a certification, and the emergency distribution plan I had built during a winter storm.
I revised it until one in the morning.
Then I searched apartments.
Not because I had decided to leave, I told myself. Because decisions were easier when choices existed.
I bookmarked a one-bedroom in Queen Anne, another in Wallingford, and a small place near Green Lake with ugly carpet and large windows.
The following afternoon, I scheduled a viewing.
I did not tell Evan.
That was the first secret I had kept from him in our marriage, and carrying it felt less like betrayal than oxygen.
On Friday morning, Evan stood in front of the bedroom mirror deciding between two shirts.
“Blue or black?” he asked.
I was fastening my watch.
“For what?”
“Dinner.”
“With clients?”
“The guys.”
I looked at him through the mirror. “Black.”
He chose blue.
“Ryan’s coming into town,” he said. “Nick got us a table somewhere.”
“Okay.”
“I might be late.”
“Okay.”
He turned. “You don’t have to say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t care.”
I picked up my earrings.
“What response would make you comfortable?”
“A normal one.”
“Have fun.”
He waited.
“Who’s going?” I asked, because I saw that he wanted the question.
His shoulders relaxed slightly. “Ryan, Nick, Caleb. Maybe some people from work.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll probably bar-hop.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t wait up.”
“I won’t.”
May you like
His expression tightened again.
That evening, I ate takeout noodles on the couch and watched a documentary about a woman who restored old pianos. At ten, I turned off the television. At ten thirty, I brushed my teeth.
