The Wife's Reckoning
Eighteen months.
As a physician, my brain did the math instinctively, aligning dates, timelines, and behavioral patterns into a clinical chart. So, I started the internal audit:
Eighteen months ago: Marcus and I had celebrated our nineteenth wedding anniversary with a quiet dinner downtown.
Seventeen months ago: We had taken Liam on a weekend trip to tour East Coast colleges.
Sixteen months ago: Marcus had staged a breakdown at the kitchen island, complaining about the crushing stress of his agency's overhead.