I started to slice open another moving box while positive mantras ran through my head instead of thoughts. I didn’t want to remember that tomorrow Michael would go off to his new job and I’d be alone, unemployed, with nothing but these affirmations to guide me.

I am excited about the new house. I am excited about Texas. I will find a job. I will make new friends. Buck up, Kacy. Everything will be good again.

And the box cutter nicked my thumb, cutting right through the stupid affirmations. Mentally chanting them never made me feel better anyway. But it did help keep the past at bay.

I popped my thumb into my mouth, but not before leaving a dark smudge across the label Tremaine: Kitchen. Somewhere we had Band-Aids, buried in a box along with antiseptic spray and ankle wraps. The movers who’d packed us up kept it tight. Every box labeled by room only, no Tremaine: Medicine Cabinet or Tremaine: Bedside Table. They could have saved time by labeling every single one Tremaine: Former Life.

Did I really need a Band-Aid? I pulled my thumb out and a dark bead formed immediately, swelling until it ran down the side of my hand. “Michael?” I called. “Do we have a first-aid kit somewhere?”

No answer. And that wasn’t like my engineer husband. Sometimes it seemed like an unanswered question caused him physical pain. Pressing my index finger against the wound, I stood and called out again. “Michael? Where’s our first-aid kit?”

This new house was one story, open floor plan, nowhere to hide, and only a handful of places where he wouldn’t hear me calling. I started searching. The hall bathroom door was open, no one in the room that “would make a great nursery,” according to our realtor—but I found him in the master bedroom closet.

He was running his hands over the seam of a box, and it took me a moment to realize he was pressing the tape back into place, resealing it. I didn’t need a closer look to guess the contents. I could read them in the way he rose to his feet with his hands out as if to ward me off. Michael had almost opened the only box without a label.

My finger skidded off my bloody thumb and I held it up in explanation. “Do we have a first-aid kit?”

“In the car.” He reached down and tore a bit of packing tape off the box. Then he pulled a tissue from his pocket and took my hand in his, inspecting it. “Not deep. Just sharp edged like a paper cut and in a bad place. We’ll close it up, and it’ll be fine.”