The next evening, I tried to behave like the woman I had been before the tea began to trouble me.<\/p>\n
I washed the dinner plates, wiped the counter, and folded the dish towel over the handle of the oven.<\/p>\n
Dererick stood near the refrigerator, looking for something he had forgotten he wanted.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you seen my charger?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the table by the couch.\u201d<\/p>\n
He found it there and smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n
I smiled back because that was what I would have done before.<\/p>\n
Nothing about the exchange was unusual.<\/p>\n
That was what made the rest so difficult.<\/p>\n
I could not point to a cruel word or a strange demand and say that everything had changed because of it.<\/p>\n
I had only the gloves, the black bag, and the memory of watching my husband move around our bedroom while I pretended to be asleep.<\/p>\n
After dinner, he asked if I wanted tea.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sure?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me for a moment, then put the kettle away from the edge of the counter.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n
I hated how relieved I felt when he did not insist.<\/p>\n
I also hated that I had begun to treat an ordinary question as something I needed to survive.<\/p>\n
We watched television together that night.<\/p>\n
The room was dim except for the screen, and the old blanket lay across both our legs.<\/p>\n
Dererick laughed at something a man on the show said.<\/p>\n
I laughed a second later, mostly because I understood the joke and partly because I wanted to prove to myself that I could still do it.<\/p>\n
He reached for the remote.<\/p>\n
I passed it to him without looking at his hand.<\/p>\n
The little movements of our life continued around me, familiar and almost comforting.<\/p>\n
When the program ended, he yawned and stretched.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMe too.\u201d<\/p>\n
He turned off the television, and we went upstairs.<\/p>\n
I changed into my nightclothes while he brushed his teeth.<\/p>\n
The bathroom light shone beneath the door.<\/p>\n
I heard the tap run, stop, then run again.<\/p>\n
I stood beside the bed and looked at the place where he usually set his phone.<\/p>\n
There was nothing there except a small crease in the bedspread.<\/p>\n
I told myself not to turn every ordinary object into evidence.<\/p>\n
That was the rule I tried to follow.<\/p>\n
Notice what happened.<\/p>\n
Do not decide what it meant before you knew.<\/p>\n
When Dererick came back into the bedroom, he wore the same tired expression he had worn the night before.<\/p>\n
He pulled back the covers and climbed into bed.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood night,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood night.\u201d<\/p>\n
He kissed my forehead.<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes after he settled beside me.<\/p>\n
For a while, I listened to his breathing and the distant hum of the refrigerator downstairs.<\/p>\n
I did not know whether I was waiting for him to sleep or waiting for myself to become brave enough to look.<\/p>\n
Eventually, I heard the familiar change in his breathing that usually meant he had drifted off.<\/p>\n
I kept my eyes closed.<\/p>\n
Minutes passed.<\/p>\n
Then more minutes.<\/p>\n
The room became so quiet that I could hear the faint movement of fabric when I shifted my foot beneath the blanket.<\/p>\n
I wanted to turn toward him.<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask him a simple question.<\/p>\n
I wanted to say, \u201cWhat are you doing with that bag?\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, I lay still.<\/p>\n
I had spent so much time imagining what he might say that I had forgotten I could ask and receive an answer I had not predicted.<\/p>\n
The clock changed numbers.<\/p>\n
I could not see the display without turning my head, but I knew where it stood on the bedside table.<\/p>\n
I waited for the sound I remembered from the other night.<\/p>\n
A drawer opening.<\/p>\n
A quiet rustle.<\/p>\n
The faint snap of something being pulled over a hand.<\/p>\n
Nothing came.<\/p>\n
Dererick remained beside me.<\/p>\n
I heard him breathe out, then shift onto his side.<\/p>\n
For one foolish second, I felt disappointed.<\/p>\n
The feeling embarrassed me immediately.<\/p>\n
I did not want anything to happen.<\/p>\n
I wanted to know what had already happened.<\/p>\n
There was a difference, even if my fear had begun to blur it.<\/p>\n
I waited a little longer, then opened my eyes.<\/p>\n
The room was dark.<\/p>\n
Dererick's outline was visible beneath the blanket, his shoulder turned away from me.<\/p>\n
I looked toward the dresser.<\/p>\n
The top was difficult to make out, but I could see the pale shape of a folded shirt and the darker rectangle of a book.<\/p>\n
I saw no bag.<\/p>\n
I did not know whether it was somewhere else in the room or whether he had put it away.<\/p>\n
I turned onto my back and stared at the ceiling.<\/p>\n
My body felt heavy, but my thoughts would not settle.<\/p>\n
I remembered the way his gloves had caught the faint light when he stood near the bed.<\/p>\n
I remembered how carefully he had moved.<\/p>\n
I remembered the black bag hanging from his hand.<\/p>\n
I could remember every detail of that scene and still understand almost nothing about it.<\/p>\n
That was the part I had been trying to escape.<\/p>\n
I wanted the memory to give me a conclusion.<\/p>\n
It gave me only itself.<\/p>\n
At some point, I must have slept.<\/p>\n
When I woke, daylight had reached the curtains, and Dererick was already out of bed.<\/p>\n
I sat up slowly.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I could not remember why I felt so tired.<\/p>\n
Then I remembered the night and the waiting.<\/p>\n
I pressed my palms against my eyes.<\/p>\n
I was beginning to feel worn down by a fear that had no proper shape.<\/p>\n
Downstairs, I found Dererick standing at the counter with two slices of bread beside the toaster.<\/p>\n
\u201cMorning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMorning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sleep any better?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA little.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was not entirely true, but it was not entirely false either.<\/p>\n
He placed the toast on a plate and asked whether I wanted some.<\/p>\n
I said yes.<\/p>\n
We ate at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
The chipped mug sat in the cupboard above the counter, out of sight.<\/p>\n
I did not open the cupboard.<\/p>\n
I did not need to see it to remember what I had done.<\/p>\n
Dererick talked about the day ahead, mentioning a few ordinary things he needed to take care of.<\/p>\n
I listened and answered when he paused.<\/p>\n
Nothing in his voice told me whether he knew how little I had slept.<\/p>\n
Nothing in his face gave me an answer about the bag.<\/p>\n
I realized I had been searching him for signs of guilt, as though guilt had a fixed expression.<\/p>\n
I had no reason to believe it did.<\/p>\n
I also had no reason to believe that a calm face meant everything was fine.<\/p>\n
I finished my toast and carried my plate to the sink.<\/p>\n
Dererick rinsed his mug and placed it on the drying rack.<\/p>\n
The sound of ceramic touching metal made me look up.<\/p>\n
He glanced at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
The word came out too quickly.<\/p>\n
He waited, perhaps expecting me to say something else.<\/p>\n
I almost did.<\/p>\n
I nearly asked him about the gloves.<\/p>\n
Instead, I turned on the tap and watched the water run over my plate.<\/p>\n
I was not ready to hear an answer I might not know how to handle.<\/p>\n
I understood that waiting could become its own kind of decision.<\/p>\n
I understood that I could not live forever by watching his hands and measuring his silences.<\/p>\n
But understanding something and being able to do it were not the same.<\/p>\n
That morning, I dried the plate, put it away, and went about the day.<\/p>\n
I carried the question with me.<\/p>\n
I did not let it become an answer.<\/p>\n
The next evening, I tried to behave like the woman I had been before the tea began to trouble me. I washed the dinner plates, wiped the counter, and folded … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36740,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36720\/revisions\/36740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}