At seven fifteen, the sauce on the stove was still warm. I'd made enough pasta for two. I left it in the pan while I sat on the bottom step of the staircase, staring at the space where her shoes usually landed. The stupidest thoughts arrived first. Did she have her charger? Had she packed the medication she sometimes needed for migraines? Would she remember the combination to the travel lock? I had spent so long being the person who checked those things that even betrayal hadn't immediately taught me how to stop.
At eight twenty, I opened the refrigerator to put away her dinner and found a sticky note on the carton of milk. We were nearly out, it said in her handwriting. Please grab some tomorrow. I stood holding the note until the refrigerator alarm began to beep. It was such an ordinary request that it made my chest hurt worse than the argument. Her life had moved on, but part of her still expected me to buy milk.
I slept on top of the covers that first night. At eleven forty, I heard a car slow outside and sat upright, convinced she'd come back. It continued down the street. At two in the morning I checked my phone, then hated myself for doing it. At four, I went downstairs and washed two plates even though only one had been used. Somewhere near dawn I fell asleep on the couch beneath the wedding photograph, still wearing the shirt I'd worn to work.
The following morning, I told Luis I needed him to handle our nine o'clock site visit. He asked whether I was sick, and I said I'd had a rough night. I couldn't bring myself to give him the truth. I had no language for explaining that my wife had left to date other men while simultaneously expecting me to preserve a place for her at our dinner table.
Around noon, Natalie sent her first message. Made it safely. I need you to respect my space. I stared at those words for a full minute. She had managed to make her departure sound like a professional development retreat. I typed, You could have respected our marriage. Then I deleted it. I typed, Please come home. I deleted that, too. Finally I set the phone face down on my desk and went back to reading a contractor's estimate, although I had to start the same paragraph four times before it made sense.
That afternoon Ryan Whitaker stepped into my office carrying two cups of coffee. He had been doing that for years. Ryan and I met at Ohio State when we were assigned to the same engineering lab, though he eventually switched majors. He was the friend who drove through a snowstorm to help me move apartments, the one who stood beside me on my wedding day, the one who convinced me that a small renovation business could become something worth building. When my mother died, he didn't offer speeches. He brought sandwiches to our house and fixed the loose porch step she'd complained about for months.