“I was packing when it started. Going up and downstairs and throwing a suitcase together, having already laid the groundwork—heading off to the Cape with some friends, getaway with the girls, blah-blah-blah—and I saw him, sitting in the kitchen in his suit, still in his suit jacket from work and having cereal for dinner. He was eating cereal and reading the back of the box. It was a kid’s cereal and it had a few little games on it, like a word-find and one of those mazes that children do while they’re waiting to eat, and he was there at our breakfast table near the window seat, and he was doing it. I mean, tracing his finger along the maze and trying to find his way out, and it struck me. It did. Right then it kind of hit me like a static shock or something, a little bolt of heat lightning. I sat down right there on the stairs and couldn’t breathe for a minute, watching him. Leaning forward with his tie hanging in the bowl, almost touching the milk, as he worked at getting to the other side of that little jumble of lines. And I realized that I was feeling something that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Something for him. My husband. These … emotions.”

“My. My oh my.”

“Yes, I know.”

“That is a surprise …”

“Believe me, for me, too.”

“I’m sure.”

“I mean, we’ve done this before. You know? Done it and I didn’t think twice about it, about what it all meant or how he might feel. No, I just did it. But not today … and so I came down here, I mean, brought my bag and everything, got here on time, but ever since then I’ve been feeling it. This sensation of doing something wrong. Bad. And maybe that’s what I’d been feeling all week, some form of this but not able to put a name to it, my finger on it. Maybe that was it.”

“So, what you’re saying is, you can’t go. Don’t want to.”

“No, I don’t. Not this weekend, anyway.”

“Not ever, maybe, from what I’m hearing.”

“I’m not sure. Honestly, I don’t really … I’m confused by it myself.”

“Right.”

“I am. I hope you believe me because I truly am torn up about it.”

“No, I believe you. I do. I’m looking at you and I can see that, feel that you’re telling me the truth. It’s not just some line.”

“Absolutely not.”

“And I appreciate that. Would’ve been nice if you could’ve put your finger on it, like, say, Thursday or something, but …”

“I did want to warn you, I mean, that I had this nagging thing going on, but …”

“The hotel’s booked now and everything …”