My phone buzzed against the mahogany desk. It was the vice president of our local branch in Bethesda, Maryland. He congratulated me with a tone of unearned familiarity, his voice dripping with the kind of forced cheer usually reserved for lottery winners, not spouses bailing out their sinking partners. I offered a polite, noncommittal hum, disconnected the call, and set the phone face down.
I didn’t feel lighter. I didn’t feel the sudden, euphoric rush of marital salvation that Jason had promised me when he spent three hours begging for this bailout the week prior. I felt entirely, surgically hollow.
When Jason returned from the city that evening, the heavy oak front door slammed shut with a joyous reverberation. He strode into the kitchen humming a tuneless, upbeat melody, shedding his tailored Italian wool coat over the back of one of our custom velvet dining chairs. He uncorked a bottle of expensive Cabernet—purchased, ironically, on a card that had been declined just forty-eight hours earlier—and poured us both generous glasses.
He kissed my cheek. His lips felt dry. He smelled of scotch, winter wind, and a faint, powdery floral scent that did not belong to my vanity.
“You saved us, Em,” he murmured, clinking his heavy crystal glass against mine. “Clean slate. Tomorrow is day one of the rest of our lives.”
I took a slow sip of the red wine, letting the tannins coat my tongue. “Yes,” I replied, looking directly into his perfectly symmetrical, utterly vacant hazel eyes. “Day one.”
