She said, “You hate me.” I didn’t know what to say. I did hate her, partly, she was right, but not for being fat: Diane is small and cute, everything on her is round and full anyway. But I was taking it very seriously that she was repulsed by me, that she stopped me anytime I tried to touch her.

I still felt love for her, too, but we didn’t have the same outlook anymore. And I didn’t like listening to her complain all the time. My life was going the way I always thought it should—I mean my job, and money. The contracts I’d sold last quarter were huge, my company had just bought a smaller firm and merged, we were booming—and I had nobody to tell that to. Diane’s job was a total disappointment, or so she claimed, though she could never be specific. She mentioned getting a master’s in something, or learning to make jewelry, but that might be too complicated. At home, she ate frozen Snickers bars in bed. She made Kool-Aid every night and chugged it from the pitcher. I hadn’t seen Diane in her underwear in months, or her bare shoulders or her pretty chest, or her pale, round thighs; she said she was flab, pure Jell-O; she said her potbelly hung over the waist of her skirt. At night she’d put on her big purple sweatshirt that came down to her knees; she’d pull the hood up over her head and tie the string and get into bed and turn off the lights. It got so messed up that I couldn’t even kiss her—she’d laugh or cover her lips and say, “I have to wax my mustache.” We had more money now, and sometimes we discussed doing something new, either kids or a new house; neither one felt like the natural thing, but what were we going to do next? Something was missing. We needed the next phase, and we needed what was missing to get to the next phase. I didn’t know whether to be worried or not.

THE NEXT MORNING I went out to get the money I’d buried in the sand. As I was digging, I saw it all again in my mind, the banged-up jeep turning and then Diane running. Who knows what those guys wanted—they probably thought we were crazy—but it occurred to me then that she’d never looked back. What if I’d tripped? Maybe I missed something, but I felt terrible then, remembering: Diane, running away from me. The money was all wet; I’d packed it in a plastic bag, and a jogger who walked by wondered if it was shellfish I had caught.