I put a hand on his shoulder and make sure he’s looking at me when I say, “You never need to be sorry about needing me. Okay?”

I’ve probably embarrassed him, but Eli ducks his head in a nod of acceptance. “Okay.”

This is the longest conversation we’ve had with each other in weeks. There’s more to be said, but neither of us says it. I close his laptop, darkening the room.

My bedroom is already dark when I enter and slip between the sheets. I tense when Ken rolls to face me. His hand on my belly is heavy and warm.

“You should really wear a robe when you go in there,” he says. “I could see your nipples through your tank top.”

“He’s my son. He was screaming. I didn’t stop to think about a robe.”

Ken’s fingers move upward to cup my breast. “Well, you should. A teen boy can’t help the things he thinks. You want him to get even more messed up than he already is?”

“He wouldn’t think about anything like that, Ken.”

“All teenage boys think like that about their mothers, Jewelann. They can’t help it.”

My lip curls. I’m repulsed and irritated at the chastisement, but I swallow both emotions. I push his hand away and turn on my side. He spoons me. His hand returns. His breath tickles the back of my neck.

I expect him to pull down my boxer shorts, to enter me, but he only thrusts against the fabric. I can’t tell if he’s erect or not. A vision of Christian’s naked penis, hard and ready for me, fills my mind. I let out a small cry. Ken covers my mouth with his hand. Like his fingers on my nipple, his grip is too hard.

I writhe.

He retreats.

“Just be a little more appropriate,” Ken says.

Thin and helpless fury rises in me. I am appropriate every second of my life. My hair, my clothes, my house, everything I am is designed to please this man and keep him contented. My opinions, the ones I voice aloud, anyway, belong to Ken. I vote the way he wants me to vote. I serve the meals he wants to eat. My body, even though he no longer seems to want it, is his. I have made myself everything he has ever said he wanted, and why?

To keep this family together.

Ten years ago, I’d been on the verge of leaving him. The emptiness that had haunted me since before we’d even met had only grown deeper the longer we were married. Motherhood didn’t sustain me. The pills couldn’t fill me up. Being the kind of wife Ken wanted definitely did not.

Then my traumatized son had started waking up every night with screaming nightmares. We were both catatonic with exhaustion. My doctor began making noises about not refilling my prescriptions because of “dependence.” To make it all worse, after almost two weeks on the road, my husband had come home and fallen to his knees, weeping, with a confession that he had “strayed.” He’d begged me to forgive him, crying that he knew I knew what he’d done, when the truth was that I would never have suspected him of cheating if he’d kept his mouth shut. I’d have preferred it that way. He’d sworn he would never succumb to temptation again, if only I would promise to be there for him.