My Husband Laughed at the Anniversary Dinner I Spe…

A lot. So I started taking notes with intention. Now, looking at the entries—“March 12: made his favorite lasagna, he asked why I never did anything simple like burgers, Todd laughed and said I was trying too hard”—I felt a strange calm settle over me.

The kind of calm I imagined surgeons felt right before an operation. Focused. Detached.

Tomorrow, I thought, scrolling. Tomorrow I’ll call Patricia. I’d never met Patricia Thornton, but I knew a lot about her.

Rachel—my best friend since freshman year of college, now a lawyer-turned-legal-recruiter—had mentioned her name six months ago over too much pinot noir. “If you ever decide you’re done,” Rachel had said, her hair in a messy bun, eyeliner smudged from a long day, “call Patricia. She’s a shark.

A good shark. The kind that tears through entitlement for sport.”

“I’m not leaving him,” I’d said automatically. “I didn’t say you were,” she’d replied.