My Husband Laughed at the Anniversary Dinner I Spe…

A joke about me having a “secret lover” (ha, ha). A question about dinner. Something.

Instead, he just frowned and said, “You forgot to start the coffee pot.”

“No,” I said, opening the door to the garage. “I didn’t.”

I wasn’t actually home late. I walked into the house at precisely 6:30 p.m., the same time I’d walked in almost every weekday of our marriage.

The difference was that I didn’t immediately put my bag down and head to the kitchen. I didn’t pull ingredients from the fridge or mentally calculate how long I had before Derek got home. Instead, I changed into leggings and a soft T-shirt and opened my laptop back at the kitchen table.

At 7:45, Derek came in balancing a large paper bag from the Thai place three blocks over. “Figured you’d be too tired to cook,” he said, setting it down with a flourish that suggested generosity. “Got your usual.”