“Kind of.” He shrugs. “Not really.” He pets the dog. “It’s just that everyone else’s parents sleep in the same room.”

“Well then, like Mom said, maybe we’ll try.”

* * *

“Were you serious about trying?” Gary says once Teddy is out of earshot.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I shrug. “Were you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He sits up against the headboard, looks around at the old photos on the walls and on my bureau. “It’s weird to be back in this room.”

“Maybe at some point, after the Puppets leave, we should switch back and forth with the basement. To make it more fair.”

“I don’t mind it down there, actually. It’s peaceful.” He shifts onto his side, then clears his throat. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

No good news has ever come from that sentence. For a few seconds, I don’t even breathe. Even though this is what I want—for both of us to lead separate lives, even if we can’t technically afford to live separately yet—I’m stunned, instantly paralyzed, a lizard on a rock.

“Better you should know than not know. And better you should hear it from me than from someone else. Even though we don’t really know anyone anymore who could possibly tell you.” He stops, restarts. “Isn’t the conventional wisdom that a separated couple should be honest with each other about what they’re doing outside their separation?”

“You’re doing something?”

“‘Doing’ is a bit of an overstatement. But I guess you could say I ‘did’ something.” He sighs; I hold my breath again. The truth is coming. “I met someone. At work.”

No good news has ever come from that sentence either, a trench digger, one of life’s many dividers between then and now, before and after. Proximity, which once drove us apart, is about to bring us closer together. Not in the form of tentative kisses, or the accidental brushing of skin, or the sudden spooning in the dark in the middle of the night. We are not coming back together like damaged nerves regenerating after an accident or a fall; our marriage is transforming itself in an unexpected way: through kindness and radical honesty, which is what drives deep platonic friendships, and it seems, those who are consciously uncoupling.

“The snackology team catered a meeting,” he explains, “and I use the word cater with extreme relativity here—one of the startups did a presentation. And, well, let’s just say there was a lot of excitement about a new energy bar we debuted at the first break: dark chocolate maple bacon coconut almond quinoa Paleo Dream.”

A month ago he didn’t even know what quinoa was, or how to pronounce it.

“I know you’re thinking that a month ago I didn’t even know what quinoa was or how to pronounce it, and so how deeply ironic it is now that I’m trafficking in the stuff. But. Anyway. A fellow snackologist and I snuck off to the little stockroom and decided to put out the new bars.” He sits up straight now. “We usually debut new snacks on Mondays, which had been the plan with this one, but the meeting was so dull and had run so long that we decided to ignore tradition and take a risk.”