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…

And for a long while, neither of us said anything.

Then he said, “You were rude.”

I turned a page.

“I was tired,” I said.

“And I was hungry, and I wasn’t told.”

“They’re family.”

“So you keep saying.”

Another silence.

Then, “What did you want me to do? Tell them not to come?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Or at minimum call me or ask me or acknowledge that this is also my home and I get a say in who is in it.”

I closed the book.

“Pick any of those. Pick all of them. What I didn’t want was to walk into my living room after the day I had and find a dinner party I didn’t know about in progress.”

“You didn’t even try,” he said.

“You just walked away.”

“I’d already eaten,” I said.

He turned the lamp off without responding.

I lay in the dark and thought, “This isn’t about the food. He knows it isn’t about the food, and the fact that he’s pretending it’s about the food is itself a piece of information.”

I filed it away and went to sleep.

The following two weeks were surface normal.

Marcus was slightly cooler, slightly careful in the way of a man who has decided the situation was your fault, but is smart enough not to say it directly.

I was pleasant and present, and I did not apologize.

Which was new.

And I could feel him registering the absence of the apology like a sound he was waiting for that didn’t come.