Looking back, the warning signs were not hidden. They were simply things I had folded away like laundry I didn’t have time to deal with. William’s hours lengthened. The hospital was understaffed, he said. The surgeries were complicated, he said. Weekend golf became a regular ritual that didn’t include me. Our conversations thinned, turning into lists and schedules.
“Emma’s recital is Thursday,” I’d say.
“I’ll try,” he’d answer, eyes already drifting to his phone.
When he was promoted to Chief of Cardiac Surgery last spring, I planned a celebration. I sent invitations, arranged catering, polished the silver, practiced the speech I would give that made him sound like a man worth following into battle.
He smiled through it, accepted compliments, clinked glasses, thanked me. Then later, when we were alone, the smile vanished as if he’d taken off a mask.
“You embarrassed me in front of the board,” he said.
I blinked at him, still holding the remains of a cupcake wrapper, stunned by the sharpness in his voice.
“I was proud of you,” I whispered.
He rubbed his forehead, the gesture of a man burdened by everyone else’s shortcomings. “You don’t understand how it works.”
That night he slept in the guest room, claiming exhaustion.
“It’s the pressure,” I told my sister on the phone the next day, standing at the kitchen sink and staring at the garden outside as if the roses might offer advice. “The promotion comes with so much responsibility.”
“Men in power often change, Jen,” she said quietly.
I laughed it off because the alternative was too frightening. I told myself she was being cynical.
Then the distance grew physical too. When I touched his arm, he shifted away. When I tried to kiss him, he turned his cheek. He said he was tired. He said the Jenkins case was complicated. He said I should understand.
I tried.
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