Julian stood by the stove, his face pale, using a wooden spoon to stir the broth while I set out two ceramic bowls.
As he reached for the salt shaker, his blue cuff slid back an inch, revealing his wrist.
A faint, uneven smudge of bright green paint ran across his skin, just below his silver watch band.
“What is that on your arm?” I asked, pointing toward his wrist.
He paused, the spoon hovering over the pot, and quickly pulled his sleeve down.
“It is nothing,” he said, not looking at me. “Just some dry-erase marker from the presentation this afternoon.”
“I did not know you used green markers for the quarterly reviews,” I said.
“We had to color-code the new budget projections,” he said, his voice steady as he began stirring the soup again.
He kept his hand low, his wrist tucked close to his side as he guided the ladle into the first bowl.
I watched the green smudge disappear beneath the dark fabric of his sleeve, the color too vibrant, too thick to be the ink of an office whiteboard.
It looked like the tempera paint we used to keep in plastic tubs when I volunteered during my college days.
“You should wash your hands before we eat,” I said, setting the spoons beside the bowls.
“I will be right back,” he said, stepping out of the kitchen toward the downstairs bathroom.
I heard the water running for a long time, the pipes humming behind the kitchen wall.
When he returned, his wrists were clean, the skin scrubbed pink under the fluorescent light.
We ate our soup in a quiet that felt different from our usual comfortable silence.
Julian spoke only to ask if we needed more bread, his eyes staying fixed on his bowl.
By ten o’clock, the rain had settled into a steady pour, rhythmic and heavy against the bedroom window.
