OPENED THE DOOR AFTER A LONG DAY AT WORK – AND FOUND SIX OF MY HUSBAND’S RELATIVES SETTLED IN COMFORTABLY, WAITING FOR DINNER. I SMILED POLITELY, WALKED TO THE BEDROOM AND CLOSED THE DOOR BEHIND ME. I HAD NO INTENTION OF COOKING – I’D ALREADY EATEN ON THE WAY HOME…

“I forgot to mention Andre was coming,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“It was just breakfast.”

“Marcus,” I said.

I was still in my running clothes.

Hair pulled back.

Probably still slightly flushed from the cold.

“I’m going to shower. When I come out, I’d like to talk. Not about Andre specifically. About what happens now.”

He said, “What do you mean what happens now?”

I said, “I mean, I think we have a problem that’s bigger than logistics, and I think we need to decide together whether we’re going to solve it. Actually solve it. Not discuss it and then return to default.”

I went to shower and while the hot water ran over me, I thought about the list of options in front of me.

And I thought about which one I could live with.

And I thought about the word that had been forming in my mind for three months.

Gathering mass.

The word I had been circling without letting myself land on it.

The word was enough.

The shower conversation—the one I’d promised and he’d been dreading—happened at the kitchen table again.

Same chairs.

Same mugs.

Same window looking out at the street below.

But something about the quality of the light was different that Sunday.

Harder.

Maybe less forgiving.

Or perhaps I was just different, and light is neutral, and I had been projecting warmth onto it all along.

I told Marcus I needed him to understand something that I had perhaps not communicated with sufficient directness before.