(Lena)
I got home after dark.
Brad's car was in the driveway when I pulled in. I sat for a moment before getting out, not because I was dreading going in but because I was tired in the good way, the kind that came from a full day of real work, and I wanted to hold onto that for one more minute before the house.
I went in through the front door and set my bag down.
Brad was in the kitchen. I could hear him before I saw him. I walked past the living room and into the hallway and he appeared in the kitchen doorway as I came toward it. He looked at me and I looked at him and neither of us said anything.
That was different.
Not the silence itself. We had been moving past each other in silence for weeks. What was different was the quality of it. Before the hearing he had still been trying.
