The house was too quiet, the kind of quiet that presses against your eardrums and makes you count the seconds between the hum of the fridge and the tick of the hallway clock. Kids were at their grandparents’ for the weekend for some fishing trip my husband had planned before he bailed for another “work emergency” in Denver. I didn’t even pretend to be disappointed anymore. Just poured myself a second glass of pinot, kicked off my heels, and let the silence swallow me whole.
I was thirty-seven, still turning heads at the PTA meetings, but the mirror in the hallway told a different story: faint lines at the corners of my eyes, the soft swell of my hips that no amount of Pilates could fully tighten. My husband hadn’t touched me in months. Not really. Quick, lights-off missionary when he reme
