Greg was quiet all through dinner. After the kids went to bed, he sat on the back steps in the cold for a long time.
I brought him a coat and sat down next to him.
“She’ll come around,” I said.
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” I said. “But I left the door open. That part’s mine. Walking through it is hers.”
Mine was quieter.
Thirty-nine thousand dollars of Someday, gone in one tap at eight twenty-one in the morning. Sitting in escrow with Marisol, in someone else’s name. Four years of nights and weekends. My pharmacy pushed back. Maybe three years. Maybe five.
And the harder part. The part I talked about on Thursdays.
I’d let it happen.
Not the money. The silence. I’d let Diane stand at my sink and sigh at my dishes for four years. I’d let Greg take the laptop out of my hands. I’d let Karen look away from me over the dishes. Every single time, I told myself I was keeping the peace. Every single time, I was just handing the peace to someone else to keep for me.
