But Sundays had seldom actually been Sundays, he reminded himself. And certainly weren’t once a week. His travel schedule meant “Sunday” came at best every few weeks, and sometimes not for months. Odds were that first day back wasn’t peaceful, either. They almost always fought on his return. The redbrick townhouse was in his name, but they’d picked it out together, intending to make it their home. Six months into their first home improvement project, the place had looked worse than when they’d started. Wallpaper on the open stairwell too high for either of them to reach was left half stripped for months, exposing a wall of cracked plaster to be patched. Painting he’d promised to do remained nothing but unopened buckets and rollers stacked in the coat closet. A small roof leak he said he’d fixed had quietly returned, weakening a bathroom ceiling until it had collapsed on her while she was in the tub. She paid all of their bills not because he didn’t have the money, but because he didn’t do it, and she couldn’t bear the late fees. Duffel bags full of his clothes lined their bedroom, it being easier for him to pick one up and leave again than to refold his clothes and put them in the dresser.

It was his house, his terms, she said—Was it ever going to be theirs? He had thought so. He bought the damn house intending to fix it up for them to share. Chores weren’t the real issue, of course. Nor were bills. It came down to baggage, but baggage of a different kind, baggage he couldn’t unpack.

Even before Erin, he found the transition back to daily life in Washington difficult. He spent his first days home from the field lying on the couch, remote in hand, staring at the television to turn his mind off. Depression was always there, like a grizzly bear wandering around a campsite, alarming but not dangerous most of the time. When the bear became aggressive, he took steps to protect himself. He drank less, went to the gym more. He wrote. He searched the internet for his next story. If his depression became overwhelming, he removed the clip from the Glock he kept in his nightstand and hid it from himself.