Marcus moved into a rental across town within the week, but he still came by for mail and for the pieces of a life he was carefully unstitching. Every time he did, I’d ask him again.
In the driveway or on the phone.
“Please, Marcus. Just tell me what happened. Was it me? Was it something I did?”
“Let it go, Eleanor. We’ve drifted apart. We’re different now.”
Always the same words. Almost rehearsed.
My estranged husband said the same thing to our daughter, Chloe, when she called him, sobbing.
“Dad, that isn’t a reason! That’s a bumper sticker!”
He’d said it to my sister, Diane. To our neighbors. To the pastor. To anyone who asked.
And nobody believed him.
Neither did I.
I kept turning it over in my mind, searching for the missing piece.
The months when he worked late.
The way he’d taken his phone into the garage.
