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 wanted to.

That’s the honest answer.

I wanted very much to believe him because the alternative—that the conversation we had just had would produce the same outcome as all the previous conversations—was a conclusion I wasn’t yet ready to sit with.

So, I chose to believe him.

The way you choose to believe a weather forecast when you really need the day to be clear.

With effort.

With hope.

And with a small practical voice in the back of your mind noting that you should probably pack an umbrella anyway.

His parents came the following weekend.

They were perfectly pleasant, as they always were.

And I cooked on Saturday evening.

And we had a nice dinner.

And Marcus was warm and attentive in the way he was when things were good.

And I thought, maybe.

Maybe this is what the conversation produces.

Maybe it actually worked.

On Sunday morning, I woke at 7 to the sound of a third voice in the kitchen.

Not his mother.

Not his father.

A voice I recognized after a moment as belonging to Marcus’ cousin, Andre, who lived thirty minutes away and had apparently called Marcus the night before to say he was driving through.

And Marcus had said, “Come for breakfast,” and had not mentioned this to me.