On the back of the last photograph he had written the date and four words: "A day worth keeping." I sat on the floor and cried so hard that my throat hurt the next morning. The crying was not proof that I was a victim of the evening. It was grief for the trust I had damaged and fear that grief might be the only thing I had left to offer.
Donovan replied at eleven-oh-six. "I'm home. I need space. Please don't call tonight." His message was polite, precise, and devastating because it contained a boundary I could understand perfectly. I wrote back, "I understand. I'm sorry." Then I turned my phone over and forced myself not to check whether he had read it.
I slept badly, waking whenever a car passed the building. At four in the morning I dreamed that I was opening the yellow kitchen door and finding the rooms empty, stripped of their walls as though the apartment were only a painted set. At six I gave up on sleep and made coffee. The first thing I did was reach for my phone, and the second was remember that he had asked me not to.
On Wednesday morning my mother called. She wanted to know whether Donovan could stop by over the weekend to look at a porch light that had begun flickering. I told her he was busy, which was true in a way that made me ashamed. She asked whether I was all right, and I said I was tired from work. She accepted the explanation only because I had practiced giving ordinary answers while my life was complicated.
At the office, Alicia asked me to review a campaign featuring a couple decorating their first home together. The woman in the advertisement held a set of keys while her partner smiled from a doorway. I stared at the images until the bright staging lights and immaculate furniture blurred together. I had to excuse myself to the restroom, where I sat on the closed toilet seat and pressed my palm against my mouth to keep from making noise.
Kendra called during lunch. She asked whether I wanted to meet for soup after her shift, and I said I had something to tell her that would probably make her angry. "Then tell me before we order," she said. "I hate paying for food when I might lose my appetite." Her dry humor was so familiar that it made my eyes sting. I agreed to meet her at the diner near the hospital, the one with the rotating display of pies and the waitress who remembered everyone's coffee order.