I married him believing I had finally found somewhere soft to land.
For a while, it was good.
He liked the idea of a quiet, steady wife with a dull government job.
He never asked many questions about my work, and I mistook his lack of curiosity for respect for my privacy.
I understand now that a man only stops asking when he has already stopped seeing you.
Then his family’s finances began to crack, and I watched who my husband became under pressure.
Walter and Evelyn had refinanced their home twice to fund Preston’s failed restaurant ventures.
By the time the foreclosure notices started arriving, they were months from losing the house they had raised their son in.
Evelyn cried at our kitchen table one afternoon, ashamed, apologizing for being a burden.
She had planted the garden out back the summer Preston was born.
Walter had carved their heights into the pantry doorframe every year on Preston’s birthday.
