I stood.
“Stop doing that.”
“What?”
“Making this noble.”
He flinched.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“You’re turning four months of lying into some sacrifice.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“I would have worried.”
“I know.”
“I might have postponed one semester.”
“I know.”
“I might have picked up more hours.”
“I know.”
“But I would have worried with you.”
That shut him up.
Then another memory hit me.
One night during our first winter at Willowmere Lane, Adrian came home after nine.
I had made chicken Parmesan.
It was the first dinner I had tried to make from scratch after we got married.
He barely touched it.
I became angry.
“You said you’d be home at six.”
“I know.”
“You could have called.”
“I know.”
“Were you working?”
“Yes.”
Then he told me he had eaten with coworkers.
I went to bed furious.
For years, that memory had been filed under:
Adrian works too much.
Now I looked at him.
“The chicken Parmesan.”
His face changed immediately.
“You remember?”
“I remember being angry for two days.”
He looked down.
“You hadn’t eaten with coworkers.”
“No.”
“Where were you?”
“An interview.”
“One?”
“Two.”
“The first ran late.”
“Then I walked to a temp agency because I thought they might still be open.”
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
“You came home hungry.”
“Yes.”
“And lied that you ate.”
“Yes.”
“I threw half that dinner away.”
He closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“You watched me do it.”
“Yes.”
That hurt in a way I could not explain.
Not because the food mattered.
Because I had spent fifteen years remembering myself as unreasonable that night.
I had apologized the next morning.
For being needy.
For not understanding work pressure.
Adrian had accepted that apology.
Now I knew I had been apologizing inside a story built from false information.
“That was cruel.”
His eyes opened.
“I know.”
“You let me believe I was the problem.”
“I know.”
That was the first moment Adrian started crying.
Quietly.
No performance.
Just tears.
I was still angry.
But seeing him hurt made my anger more complicated.
Marriage is annoying like that.
We walked farther down the street.
Adrian stopped outside a narrow shop between a pharmacy and a laundromat.
The faded sign above the door read:
MERCER SHOE & LEATHER
I looked at the shoes.
“This is where they came from.”
“Yes.”
Inside, an elderly man sat behind the counter reading a newspaper.
He looked up.
Then narrowed his eyes at Adrian.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then he smiled.
“Well.”
“The walking man.”
Adrian laughed despite himself.
“You remember me?”
The man stood.
“Some customers come twice.”
“You came every week with another problem.”
