Somewhere inside that ordinary tiredness, I began keeping score. I counted late evenings without counting the mornings Ethan got up early to walk the dogs so I could sleep. I counted the occasions he forgot flowers without counting the times he quietly washed my car or repaired a broken buckle on a favorite bag. It felt sophisticated to tell myself that our marriage was dying from neglect. It required less courage than admitting that I had stopped participating honestly in it.
Ryan Holloway understood that weakness in me before I did. We had met at Belmont University, where he was the handsome friend who knew somebody at every music venue and could turn any inconvenient situation into an opportunity. After graduation he went into marketing, then commercial property consulting, then a series of ventures with polished websites and impressive names that changed whenever the economy turned. He knew how to make people feel that a door was opening in front of them and that only he knew where the handle was.
He was my friend first, not Ethan's, although over time he became familiar enough with our house to walk in without knocking. He helped Copper & Bloom find its first large corporate client and introduced Ethan to two people interested in sponsoring youth recording workshops. He came to our birthdays, brought ridiculous wine, and called me when I had bad days. At our wedding he had raised a glass and said he'd never seen two people better suited to make something lasting together.
I remember that toast clearly because I used it later as evidence that Ryan was safe. Who could be dangerous, I reasoned, if he had been part of our life for so long? I ignored the less flattering parts of the story: the invoices he always wanted processed urgently, the acquaintances who stopped returning his calls, the projects that collapsed after he had already taken a consulting fee. Ethan was more skeptical, but whenever he questioned a deal Ryan proposed, I accused him of being territorial.
"He has instincts you don't," I told Ethan one evening as he reviewed a sponsorship proposal at the kitchen table. "Not everything is about measuring wires and calculating how long a wall will last."
Ethan closed the folder. "I'm not questioning whether he knows people. I'm questioning why the payment schedule sends money to a company that wasn't on the original contract."
"He explained that. It's a subcontractor."
"Then I want the subcontractor's name and the work they're doing."
I rolled my eyes. "You treat every good opportunity like somebody's trying to rob us."
He studied me for a moment. "Claire, asking questions before signing a contract is how we keep people from robbing us."
There should have been a longer conversation after that. Instead I walked into the other room, texted Ryan a version of what Ethan had said, and received the response that made me feel understood: He'll never be comfortable with you having a life bigger than his building. The words were cruel and mostly untrue, but they arrived at exactly the moment I wanted somebody else to blame. I kept them.