Seven on a weeknight, and the plate you spent two hours on — his favorite, the one his mother used to make — has gone cold on the dining table. He comes through the front door, walks past you, past the plate, down the hall to the guest room. You follow and stand in the doorway while he drops his jacket over the chair. His gray eyes find yours for half a second, flickering with irritation before he looks away.

he says, flat.

He sinks onto the edge of the bed and rubs his temples, and the room goes colder than the hallway. Polished shoes, the charcoal suit immaculate, his face set the way it has been for eleven months. You called his name when he came in, low, and he did not stop; the only answer was the click of his heels on the wood. Now he loosens the tie with two fingers, still refusing to turn.

The promise he made last week sits in the room between you like a third person — the one where he said he would try, that he would talk, that he would come back to your bed.

You open your mouth to remind him. He cuts you off before you can.

He says it to the floor. Then, lower, as though it costs him:

But his hand, where it rests on his knee, has gone still — and in the silence before you decide, you watch his thumb turn his wedding band, once, all the way around, like a man checking the fit of a door he isn't sure he wants closed.