“It’s beautiful,” I said, and I meant it. It felt alive.
“Then it’s yours.” He handed it to me. “I think you’re like the wildflowers in this painting. Quiet, but with a life force all your own that’s just waiting for the right season.”
That was the sentence that unlocked a door in my heart I had long since bolted shut. We started talking more in the faculty lounge, strolling through the small school garden, grabbing coffee that turned into wine. I knew it was wrong. I knew it was a cliché. But the feeling of being truly seen, of being admired not for my function as a wife or mother but for my essence, was like rain on parched earth.
Michael, pragmatic as ever, sensed the shift in the atmospheric pressure of our marriage.
“You’re working late a lot recently,” he said one evening from his usual indentation on the beige sectional.
“Just a lot to do at school. End of term,” I lied, avoiding his gaze as I hurried into the bedroom to scrub the scent of excitement off my skin.
He didn’t press. He just sat there in the silent glow of the television. That silence made me feel guilty, but it also made me bolder. If he didn’t care enough to fight for me, why should I care enough to stay?
The explosion happened on a weekend. I’d told Michael I had a faculty workshop, but I had actually arranged to go sketching with Ethan by Lake Addison. We spent the entire afternoon by the water, talking about poetry, art, and the terrifying brevity of life.
As dusk fell, turning the sky a bruised purple, Ethan took my hand. “Susan, I—”
“Mom.”
The word was a gunshot. I whipped my head around.
Jake was standing twenty feet away, his face pale with a fury that made him look ten years older. And next to him, standing like a statue carved from ice, was Michael.
My husband’s face was a blank mask, but his eyes were fixed on me with a terrifying clarity. My mind went white. It turned out Jake had come home from college to surprise me. When I didn’t answer my phone, he’d asked Michael to drive him to my “usual spots.”
“Home,” was all Michael said. He turned and walked back to the car without waiting to see if I followed.
The ride back was a funeral procession. Jake sat in the back, radiating disappointment. When we got home, Michael sent Jake to his room. Then he sat on the living room sofa, lit a cigarette—a habit he’d quit for me years ago—and looked at me through the smoke.
“How long?” His voice was calm. That scared me more than yelling would have.
“I’m sorry.” I knelt in front of him, sobbing. “I was wrong. I was so wrong.”
