The steam was still rising from the roast beef when my life split open. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can smell the rosemary and garlic, the butter I had whisked into the potatoes, the Cabernet breathing in the crystal glasses beside the candles. Tragedy ties itself to strange things.
Not always to words. Not always to faces. Sometimes it ties itself to the smell of dinner and the sound of wax dripping onto linen.
I had spent six hours cooking that meal. I was wearing the silk dress Gary used to say made me look like an old Hollywood movie star. The cream-colored tablecloth only came out on anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas Eve.
The candles were already burning low because I had lit them early, wanting everything to be perfect. It was our fifteenth anniversary. Well, technically it would have been the following week, but Gary had said he had a business trip coming up, so we were celebrating early.
Or so I thought. When the front door opened, I turned toward the foyer with my brightest smile and two glasses of the expensive Cabernet he liked. I remember the exact angle of my wrist, the way the stems caught the light, the little burst of happiness I still felt in that final second before everything changed.
Gary did not smile back. He did not even take off his coat. He stood in the entryway of the house we had built together, looking at me with an expression I had never seen on his face before.
It was not anger. It was not guilt. It was boredom.
Cold, detached, unmistakable boredom. He walked past me without touching the wine, without looking at the food, without glancing at the card I had written and tucked beside his plate. He reached into the crook of his arm, pulled out a thick manila envelope, and dropped it onto the dining room table.
It landed beside the anniversary card with a heavy, ugly thud. The sound seemed to ricochet through the whole house. “I’m done, Brenda,” he said.
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