My Husband Laughed at the Anniversary Dinner I Spe…

Gerald seemed impressed with the presentation I mentioned.”

I was in the kitchen, scraping the remains of my four-hour coq au vin—the organic chicken, the good bacon, the expensive wine—into the garbage disposal. For a second, I watched the food swirl into a shapeless brown-red mess and disappear. It felt too on the nose.

“It went exactly as it should have,” I said. He leaned in the doorway in the familiar uniform of post-work Derek: undershirt, suit pants, phone in hand. “You’re not mad about the candle thing, are you?

I was just joking around. You know how Todd is.”

I turned the water off. The silence afterward was loud.

“I’m not mad,” I said. “Good, because you were being kind of extra tonight.” He laughed again, oblivious to the way the word extra hit like a slap. “I mean, anniversary or not, it’s a Thursday.

We’re not kids playing house anymore.”