The next morning, I woke before Dererick.<\/p>\n
The room was pale with early light, and the curtains moved slightly where they did not quite meet the window frame.<\/p>\n
I lay on my back and listened to the house.<\/p>\n
There was no movement downstairs.<\/p>\n
No kettle.<\/p>\n
No cupboard opening.<\/p>\n
No sound except the soft hum that came from the refrigerator and traveled faintly through the floor.<\/p>\n
I turned my head toward Dererick.<\/p>\n
He was asleep, one hand resting near his pillow.<\/p>\n
His face looked peaceful.<\/p>\n
I wondered how much of what I believed about a person came from the moments when I watched them without their knowledge.<\/p>\n
Then I wondered whether that was a fair question to ask myself while I was doing exactly that.<\/p>\n
I looked away.<\/p>\n
I had promised myself I would stop treating every quiet moment as a test.<\/p>\n
I wanted to keep that promise.<\/p>\n
When Dererick woke, he rubbed his face and glanced at the clock.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you sleep?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat's better than nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it casually, then got out of bed.<\/p>\n
I watched him collect his clothes.<\/p>\n
His movements were familiar, even comforting.<\/p>\n
He did not seem like someone carrying a secret that could change the way I understood our life.<\/p>\n
But I had already learned that appearances could not settle the question.<\/p>\n
I went downstairs after him.<\/p>\n
He made breakfast while I filled a glass with water.<\/p>\n
The kettle remained on the counter, clean and unused.<\/p>\n
I tried not to stare at it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWant some tea?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did not ask why.<\/p>\n
He did not sigh or look annoyed.<\/p>\n
He simply reached for the bread.<\/p>\n
I was relieved, then disappointed in myself for feeling relieved.<\/p>\n
The smallest things had become complicated.<\/p>\n
After breakfast, Dererick left to take care of his day.<\/p>\n
I stood at the window and watched him walk away.<\/p>\n
I did not know what I expected to see.<\/p>\n
He opened the car door, placed something inside, and got in.<\/p>\n
I could not tell what the object was from where I stood.<\/p>\n
For a second, I felt my attention sharpen.<\/p>\n
Then he started the car and drove away.<\/p>\n
I remained by the window until the street was empty.<\/p>\n
I told myself that watching him leave was not going to help me understand what happened at night.<\/p>\n
I turned away.<\/p>\n
The house looked unchanged.<\/p>\n
The kitchen table was clean.<\/p>\n
The chairs were pushed in.<\/p>\n
The chipped mug remained in the cupboard.<\/p>\n
I walked through the rooms and tried to imagine what it would feel like to move through them without wondering what I might be missing.<\/p>\n
I could not remember the last time I had done that.<\/p>\n
I sat down at the table with a notebook.<\/p>\n
I had not planned to write anything.<\/p>\n
I only wanted somewhere to put the words I kept repeating in my head.<\/p>\n
I wrote, \u201cI saw Dererick put on gloves.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the sentence.<\/p>\n
It was plain and true.<\/p>\n
I wrote, \u201cHe picked up a black bag.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then I wrote, \u201cI do not know why.\u201d<\/p>\n
That last sentence mattered more than the others.<\/p>\n
It was the only one that did not turn my fear into a fact.<\/p>\n
I read all three lines again.<\/p>\n
I had been living as though I needed to choose between believing Dererick completely and believing the worst about him.<\/p>\n
The notebook showed me a third possibility.<\/p>\n
I could admit what I had seen without pretending I understood it.<\/p>\n
I could ask him for an explanation without deciding in advance what that explanation would be.<\/p>\n
I closed the notebook.<\/p>\n
I did not leave it on the table.<\/p>\n
I put it in a drawer and went about the rest of the morning.<\/p>\n
The hours passed slowly.<\/p>\n
I cleaned the bathroom and changed the sheets.<\/p>\n
When I lifted the blanket, I noticed the familiar shallow dip where Dererick slept.<\/p>\n
It was only the shape the mattress had taken after years of use.<\/p>\n
I smoothed the fabric and stood there for a moment.<\/p>\n
The bed had not changed.<\/p>\n
I had.<\/p>\n
By afternoon, I had rehearsed the question so many times that it began to sound unnatural.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw you with gloves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Too abrupt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI woke up and noticed you doing something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Too vague.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I ask you something about the other night?\u201d<\/p>\n
That sounded possible.<\/p>\n
I repeated it while folding a towel.<\/p>\n
I repeated it while putting a glass away.<\/p>\n
I repeated it once while standing in the kitchen, looking at the place where I had poured the tea down the sink.<\/p>\n
I did not know why that moment remained so sharp.<\/p>\n
Perhaps because I had done it secretly.<\/p>\n
Perhaps because I had wanted to protect myself without admitting to myself what I was protecting myself from.<\/p>\n
I had not seen anything happen to the tea.<\/p>\n
I had not found anything in the mug.<\/p>\n
I had made a decision based on fear, and then I had hidden that decision.<\/p>\n
I could not blame myself for being afraid.<\/p>\n
I could, however, admit that fear had begun to guide too many of my choices.<\/p>\n
When Dererick returned, I was sitting on the couch with a book open on my lap.<\/p>\n
I had not read a single page.<\/p>\n
He set down his keys.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHey.\u201d<\/p>\n
He came over and kissed the top of my head.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat have you been up to?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust cleaning. Reading a little.\u201d<\/p>\n
He glanced at the book.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny good?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven't gotten far.\u201d<\/p>\n
He laughed softly.<\/p>\n
\u201cSounds familiar.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was not wrong.<\/p>\n
I had started books before and left them unfinished for weeks.<\/p>\n
Usually, he teased me about it.<\/p>\n
Usually, I teased him about the things he bought and forgot to use.<\/p>\n
I wanted to enjoy the ordinary exchange.<\/p>\n
I did enjoy it, for a few seconds.<\/p>\n
Then the question returned.<\/p>\n
Can I ask you something about the other night?<\/p>\n
I could have said it then.<\/p>\n
He was beside me, not rushing anywhere, and the room was quiet.<\/p>\n
I looked at his hands.<\/p>\n
They rested loosely on his knees.<\/p>\n
I remembered the pale gloves and felt my mouth go dry.<\/p>\n
He noticed me looking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
I shook my head.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing. Sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
He leaned back.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou've been doing that a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDoing what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStarting to say something, then stopping.\u201d<\/p>\n
My heart began beating harder.<\/p>\n
I could feel the opportunity opening in front of me.<\/p>\n
I could also feel how easy it would be to close it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'm trying to figure out how to say something,\u201d I admitted.<\/p>\n
He turned toward me.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
He waited.<\/p>\n
I looked down at the book.<\/p>\n
The page had a sentence underlined in pencil, though I could not remember underlining it.<\/p>\n
I put my finger on the margin.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt's not easy to explain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don't have to explain it perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n
His answer was gentle.<\/p>\n
I wanted to believe that gentleness meant I could speak safely.<\/p>\n
I wanted to believe it did not matter whether the answer was easy or difficult.<\/p>\n
But I still did not know what I would do if his explanation left me with more questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI might talk to you later,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did not press me.<\/p>\n
I should have felt grateful.<\/p>\n
Instead, I felt the weight of my own retreat.<\/p>\n
We sat together for a while.<\/p>\n
He asked about dinner, and I suggested something simple.<\/p>\n
We made the meal side by side, and he told me a story about his day.<\/p>\n
I answered at the right places.<\/p>\n
I did not tell him that I had spent the afternoon trying to build one honest sentence.<\/p>\n
After dinner, I rinsed the dishes.<\/p>\n
He dried them.<\/p>\n
The same small sounds filled the kitchen: water running, a plate tapping against the sink, the soft pull of a towel across ceramic.<\/p>\n
I thought about how much of a marriage was made from repeated actions.<\/p>\n
How easy it was to take those actions as proof that nothing important could be hidden.<\/p>\n
How unfair it might be to treat every familiar gesture as a disguise.<\/p>\n
I did not want to accuse him of something I could not name.<\/p>\n
I also did not want to keep lying awake, waiting for a sound that might never come.<\/p>\n
When we went upstairs, I decided I would not rehearse the question again.<\/p>\n
I would either ask it when I was able, or I would admit to myself that I was choosing to wait.<\/p>\n
I could not make the decision disappear by pretending I had not made it.<\/p>\n
In bed, Dererick reached for my hand.<\/p>\n
I let him hold it.<\/p>\n
His palm was warm, and his thumb moved once across my knuckles.<\/p>\n
I felt affection.<\/p>\n
I felt fear.<\/p>\n
I felt the shame of having both feelings at the same time.<\/p>\n
I did not pull away.<\/p>\n
I did not ask the question.<\/p>\n
But I stopped telling myself that I had no choice.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I woke before Dererick. The room was pale with early light, and the curtains moved slightly where they did not quite meet the window frame. I lay … <\/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-36722","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\/36722","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=36722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36742,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36722\/revisions\/36742"}],"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=36722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}