And I suspected he wanted the final image.
Claire Bennett arriving alone.
Seeing what she had supposedly lost.
Smiling graciously.
Then leaving.
Proof that he had been right all along.
There was just one problem.
Adrian had never been right about the most important thing.
The pregnancy.
I had been twenty-seven when our marriage fell apart.
Adrian had returned from a difficult period of military training different from the man who left.
Quiet.
Restless.
Detached.
He began talking about our marriage as if it were something happening to him rather than something we were both inside.
Then one night he said:
“I think we made a mistake.”
I thought he meant buying the wrong house.
He meant us.
The weeks after that were brutal.
He told me he needed freedom.
Said I asked too many questions.
That I became emotional when he withdrew.
That I made him feel trapped.
Words that had never defined our marriage suddenly became his entire explanation for leaving it.
