It starts with the “we need to talk” call he barely catches in the bathroom when he switches his cell on, just to check the messages. Seven A.M. and she’s already calling the house. What if he’d accidentally left the phone on and that had happened in the breakfast nook or as he was sitting down to watch Good Morning America for ten minutes with the family? Not good, that’s what that is. No way you get out of explaining a 7 A.M. call to your cell phone, I don’t care who you are. One of those takes plenty of explaining. Plenty.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there, I promise,” he whispers into the receiver over the protective hiss of his shower water. “I will! Jesus, I said, ‘I promise,’ OK?” He hangs up and slips the Motorola deep into his bathrobe pocket for safekeeping as he starts to peel off his Jockeys. He glances in the mirror, mercifully frosting over now, and promises a day or two at the gym this week. And if not this week then definitely the next, since break will be starting up and he’ll have a little more time to himself. A lot more, actually, if he can get her off his back for five minutes. He knows that only a breakup—I mean, a complete severing of their relationship—can make that happen, and he begins to steel himself to the idea as he steps into the steamy glass box before him. He taps himself on the head, muttering, “Dumbshit!” under his breath, and returns to the robe. Switches off the phone. Jumps back into the shower.