The next two days passed in a careful, deliberate silence.

Daniel left for work earlier than usual. He came home later.

When we crossed paths in the kitchen or the hallway, he nodded once, polite and distant, and kept moving. The conversations we had were reduced to practical things — whether I needed anything from the store, whether the Wi-Fi had been working, whether I had eaten. Every exchange was clean. Controlled. Empty of the honesty that had broken open between us in the kitchen.

I tried to match his distance.

I stayed in the guest room with my laptop. I took walks around the neighborhood in the late afternoon....