Loneliness was perhaps not the right word. Yes, she seemed to hold her guard up, but she didn’t seem lonely, not really. There was nothing very try-hard about her online presence; her photos were sumptuous, sure, but nothing seemed too deliberate, too studied. She seemed to be literally showing off snapshots of her life. It was nothing like his wife’s social media presence, earnest and aching with plaintive falsities, pastel and planned.

He could tell that a man in her life had to be a tad subservient to get her prolonged attention, that she was not one to depend on a partner for personal endorsement, that if she wasn’t the alpha she wouldn’t be interested. She needed to feel in control, to feel like she could hurt him, wound him, if she really wanted to.

It was something about her posing, her nonchalance, the intrinsically chic way she lived her life, that gave this weakness away, this need for power in her romantic life. This was not someone who would easily be used. He would have to keep that in mind, tamp down his own urges for authority.

How had he learned to be so discerning? He asked himself this question a lot. For someone who, admittedly, didn’t much care for people or their habits, his emotional intelligence was quite high. It had to do, of course, with Peri. The one who taught him everything he needed to know.

His wife was leaving for Michigan with the baby. Their house smelled like lotion, for a bitter Midwestern March, even though she had stowed away all her toiletries so carefully in labeled Ziploc bags, inside their suitcases. “You can have the maid do that, you know,” he told her as she folded her clothes, put them in airtight bags to save room. It seemed like she was leaving for a while. How long did she expect to be gone? He hadn’t bothered to ask. She rolled her eyes at him.

“I want to do this myself. I want to do something for myself. My mom knows a good prenatal doctor over there, by the way, not that you care.” With a huff she coiled her hair dryer’s cord around its handle, took items from her vanity and placed them in a bag embroidered with her initials. “I don’t feel like I exist, Tom. Don’t you get it? I don’t feel like I exist here. I don’t feel like Penelope exists, either. Maybe if I go away, this new baby will have a better chance at existing.” She rose up from packing the suitcase, looked him straight in the eyes with that newly defiant gaze he’d somehow grown used to. “You don’t help those feelings, you know. You don’t help them at all.”