We did not. Sarah began staying later at work, attending networking events I was never invited to, and talking about people I had never met as though they understood her better than I did. I stopped suggesting Friday dinners because she so often said she had something else on. When she was home, she moved between the sofa and the balcony with her phone, occasionally laughing at a message and then looking guilty for a fraction of a second before smoothing her expression.
I asked her one evening whether we were okay. She was brushing her hair in the bathroom mirror, getting ready for another work event, and paused with the brush in her hand. For a moment I thought she might turn around and tell me something honest. Instead, she said, "We're fine, Alex. Why do you always have to make everything heavy?"
"Because we barely talk anymore."
"We talk all the time."
"About deliveries and bills. About who's picking up groceries. We haven't had an actual conversation in weeks."
She put down the brush harder than she needed to. "I'm trying to grow, and sometimes I feel like you resent that."
"I don't resent you growing," I said. "I miss feeling like I'm growing with you."
She looked at me in the mirror, and for a second I saw something close to discomfort. Then her phone buzzed, and she reached for it. Whatever conversation we might have had ended there, as if a notification on a screen had been granted more authority over our marriage than either of us.
I went to bed early that night. Sarah came home after midnight and slipped in beside me, carrying the scent of perfume and restaurant food. I lay awake for a long time without moving. I was afraid to accuse someone I loved of something I could not prove, and I was equally afraid that my reluctance to ask hard questions was becoming a way of protecting a story I wanted to keep believing.
The Sunday dinner at her parents' house arrived three weeks later. Her mother had invited us because an uncle was in town, and I had promised to help her father move a heavy table before everybody arrived. Sarah got ready slowly, changed outfits twice, and seemed irritated by questions as ordinary as whether she wanted to leave at four or four-thirty. I watched her put on earrings that Liam had apparently recommended as a birthday gift idea and felt an odd sensation of being a guest in my own relationship.
We drove across town mostly in silence. I tried music, then turned it down when Sarah said she had a headache. At a red light, I reached over and touched her hand where it rested on the center console. She left it there, but she did not squeeze back. It was such a small thing that I hated myself for noticing it, and then hated myself a little more for pretending I had not.