A single distant evening can be explained. A person can be tired, distracted, or absorbed in a project, and none of those things has to mean infidelity. What frightened me was the way the distance continued after the trip ended. Zoe had always been expressive, even when she was angry. Now she seemed to spend enormous energy keeping ordinary conversations short enough that they couldn't lead anywhere.
I asked what show she'd liked best. She said she couldn't remember the title. I asked whether they had gone to the restaurant she'd been excited about, and she said they went somewhere else. Her photographs from the trip were suddenly "not edited yet," though she normally sorted her pictures the minute she got home. When I suggested we look through them together, she said she needed to work.
I bought groceries and cooked her favorite pasta one Friday night. I lit a candle because she once told me candlelight made a weeknight dinner feel like a date. She came home late from meeting Sarah for drinks, looked at the table, and said she had already eaten. I tried not to show how disappointed I was. She noticed anyway and made it sound as though my disappointment was another chore she'd been assigned.
"You're doing that thing," she said.
"What thing?"
"Looking hurt so I feel guilty. I said I ate."
"I didn't know you had plans. I thought we'd have dinner."
"We don't have to do everything together, Alex."
"I know. I just wish I'd known."
She took a glass of water to the bedroom. I ate alone at the table I'd set for two, then packed the leftovers into containers for the next day. It was a tiny event compared with what came later, but I remember it clearly because I began feeling foolish for making gestures of affection. Loving her had started to feel like something I had to apologize for doing visibly.
Her phone became the center of her life. It followed her from room to room, sometimes tucked under her arm while she carried laundry, sometimes balanced on the sink while she brushed her teeth. Notifications lit up the screen late at night. She'd smile to herself, type quickly, and turn over when she sensed me waking. If I asked who she was talking to, the answer was always someone from work or one of the girls.
I tried asking directly whether something was wrong between us. She said she was simply stressed and needed space. I offered to give her more of it, then felt foolish because I wasn't sure what more space meant when two people already spent most evenings on separate screens. She said I made everything into a discussion. I started avoiding discussions to prove I could be easygoing, and the silence became another thing I didn't recognize.