The Wife He Took For Granted
Now she just watched, and he just kept trying, and there was something in that small exchange that felt more like a marriage than any grand gesture had in years.
"Hartwell called again," she said, after a while.
His hands didn't stop moving, but something in his shoulders went carefully still, the way they did whenever this subject came up. She noticed it. She always noticed it now, the same way she noticed herself noticing, because six months ago that stillness would have been the opening act of an argument, him building a case for why she should stay, dressed up as concern for the family, for stability, for all the things a wife was supposed to want more than her own name on a door.