The dinner is still on the stove, going stiff in the pan, because you have not turned the gas off and he has not sat down. It has been forty minutes.

Rourke came in at seven, said your name, and went to the counter with his phone in his hand. That was the first time. Since then he has checked it seventeen times — you counted, because there was nothing else to do with your hands — the screen lighting under his thumb and going dark again. The eighteenth time he does not even look at it. He puts it face down on the granite, harder than he means to, and stands there with both hands flat on the counter, looking at nothing. Behind him the chicken has a skin on it now.

he says, to the counter, not to you.

He does not turn around. The refrigerator hums. The clock you bought in the second year of the marriage says 7:44, and he has been in this kitchen for forty-four minutes, and he has not looked at you either.

Then he does turn, and his face is doing something you have not seen it do in eleven years — not crying, worse than that, the face of a man who has just found out how much he owes.

He picks the phone up and holds it out to you, face up, unlocked, screen still bright.

Then he puts it in your hand and closes his fingers around your wrist.