Because "you're the best" meant something slightly different.
It described performance.
I was useful.
Competent.
Available.
A premium service package.
I did not know she had begun thinking of me in almost exactly those terms until five days before our anniversary.
That afternoon, a client meeting scheduled for three was canceled because two executives missed a connecting flight.
My boss told me to head home.
I normally worked until six.
Rachel expected me after six-thirty.
Our eighth anniversary was that Saturday.
I had already planned everything.
Dinner at Maison Verre, a restaurant Rachel had been talking about for months.
Window table.
Eight o'clock.
I had requested the same bottle of champagne we ordered on our fifth anniversary.
And the gift was already sitting on the passenger seat of my car.
A watch.
Not just any watch.
Rachel had shown it to me seven months earlier while we were walking through a department store.
She had stopped in front of the display.
"That is gorgeous."
That was all.
She had not asked for it.
But after eight years of marriage, I understood the language.
That is gorgeous meant:
I will remember this object exists.
You should probably remember too.
The watch was expensive.
More than I would normally spend.
But our finances were healthy, and eight years felt significant.
I had saved separately for it rather than pulling the entire amount from our joint account because I wanted the purchase to remain a surprise.
I even paid for gift wrapping.
Black box.
Cream ribbon.
Perfect.
I pulled into the driveway shortly after four.
Rachel's car was there.
So was Megan's.
Megan had been Rachel's closest friend since graduate school.
I liked her.
Mostly.
She was blunt, occasionally intrusive, and had the gift of saying things that sounded like jokes while clearly being investigations.
I carried my briefcase in one hand and the watch in the other.
My plan was to hide it in my office.
I unlocked the front door.
The house was quiet except for voices from the kitchen.
I almost called out.
Then I heard Megan ask:
"Do you even love him anymore?"
My hand stopped on the door.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
The door was barely six inches open.
I stood half inside, half outside.
There are private conversations you accidentally hear and immediately recognize you should not.
My instinct was to make noise.
Let them know I was home.
Then Rachel answered.
"I don't know."
I stopped breathing.
Megan said something quieter that I could not catch.
Rachel sighed.
Then:
"Sometimes I honestly think if he just disappeared one day, I'd be overjoyed."
Everything inside me became still.
Not dramatic.
Not shattered glass.
Stillness.
Megan responded immediately.
"Jesus, Rachel."
A pause.
"That's horrible."
"I know how it sounds."
"How else is it supposed to sound?"
"I don't mean I want something bad to happen to him."
"Then what do you mean?"
Rachel's voice became frustrated.
"I mean sometimes I imagine just waking up and not having to be married anymore."
Megan lowered her voice.
"Then why don't you divorce him?"
That question would later become one of the most important parts of the conversation.
Because Rachel had an answer ready.
"Because right now it's convenient."
I remember looking down at the anniversary gift in my hand.
Convenient.
Eight years.
A mortgage.
Christmases.
Funerals.
Vacations.
Illness.
Promises.
Reduced to the word you use when a pharmacy stays open late.
Megan sounded uncomfortable.
"Convenient how?"
Rachel laughed slightly.
Not maliciously.
Casually.