Chapter 3

I stood in the driveway without closing the car door.

Dean was still behind the wheel, one hand resting on the steering wheel.

He had asked what I wanted him to do, and there was exhaustion in his voice, as though I had handed him an extra task at the end of a long day.

“Take Willa’s access card back,” I said.

He frowned.

“And she doesn’t get to be alone in the greenhouse anymore. You don’t go running to her in the middle of the night, turn off your phone, and leave me to find out what happened from someone else the next day.”

Dean’s hand dropped from the wheel.

“June, you’re making this into something bigger than it is.”

“I’m telling you what happened.”

“She isn’t trying to interfere with our lives. She needed somewhere quiet.” He paused. “She really wasn’t okay last night.”

I looked at him.

“And I was?”

Dean didn’t answer.

I didn’t wait for another excuse.

“Get the card back tonight. And if Willa needs something from now on, you can tell her to call a friend, her family, or find another way through it. You cannot keep acting like you’re the only person she can call.”

“You’re asking me to abandon someone who’s struggling?”

“I’m asking you to stop using our marriage to fill whatever’s missing in her life.”

His face hardened.

“I didn’t betray you.”

“I didn’t say you slept with her.”

That made him more uncomfortable.

He would have preferred an accusation he could deny over hearing the choices he had always called helping.

“You can’t convict me because I helped a coworker,” he said. “Willa doesn’t have many people she can depend on. You’re different. You’ve always been independent.”

I nodded.

“Yes. I have.”

I shut the car door and walked inside.

That night, I didn’t make dinner.

There was chicken and vegetables in the refrigerator.

I had planned to make soup and pack some for Dean to take to work the next day.

Everything stayed where it was until the edges of the chicken began to turn gray.

When Dean came home, he opened the refrigerator, then looked at the empty dining table.

“You didn’t make dinner?”

“No.”

“What am I supposed to eat?”

I was putting my clothes into the washing machine. My hand stopped over the laundry basket.

For years, Dean had rarely asked me directly to do anything.

He made his needs sound like rules that had always existed.

Breakfast needed to be ready by a certain time. His shirts belonged in a certain place. Dinner couldn’t be too heavy if he had a meeting the next day.

I used to think not keeping score was part of being married.

Now I could see how easy I had made it for him.

“There’s food in the fridge,” I said. “You can make something.”

He stood in the middle of the kitchen, his expression tight.

“Are you punishing me?”

“No. I’m just not building my life around your schedule anymore.”

He didn’t say anything else. He opened a delivery app and ordered a burger.

After nine, I came out of the shower and found him in the living room.

The television was on, but he wasn’t watching it.

His phone sat on the coffee table, lighting up again and again.

Willa’s name appeared on the screen.

Dean looked at me, as if he were waiting for me to make this easier.

I walked over, wrote down the community garden office number on a notepad, and set it in front of him.

“Tomorrow morning, I’m changing the greenhouse registration.”

His expression shifted at last.

“You can’t do that. We built it together.”

“You helped carry materials a few times. The lease, the insurance, the registration, and the upkeep have always been in my name.”

“June—”

His phone rang again.

This time, it wasn’t a text.

Dean answered, and Willa’s crying filled the room.

“I don’t know where to go,” she said. “I really don’t want to be alone.”

Dean looked up at me, his fingers already closing around his car keys.

I didn’t stop him.

I asked only one question.

“Are you going?”

He was quiet for two seconds.

Then he stood.