The whole time his hands kept moving, folding the clean tissue into a pad that he pressed against the cut, wrapping the tape firmly to apply pressure in just the right place, tucking under any loose edges so that my makeshift bandage was neat and orderly. When he was done, he raised my hand to his lips for a quick kiss. “All better.”

“Thanks.” Tomorrow he would go to work. Tomorrow. I’d be by myself in this house. Without a job, without a friend, without a plan. I am excited about the new house. I am excited about the move. I will find a job. I will make new friends. Everything will be fine.

The affirmations made my breathing weirdly rhythmic, and Michael noticed. He noticed everything about me now. His hands went to my shoulders, and he pulled me close against his chest. His old T-shirt smelled like cotton, cardboard, and the shaving cream he used. The safest smells in the world. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered into my hair. “You don’t have to decide anything now.”

“I need something to do. I want to work.”

“So you can start the job search. But there’s no pressure. You can take your time, explore your options.”

“But no one’s going to hire me, not in my field.”

“Maybe you could apply under your maiden name. Or try something different. They say the average person has dozens of job changes.” He rubbed my back, and I had to fight the urge to pound my fists on his chest. This wasn’t a problem he could engineer away.

He sensed the tension in my body and let me go. “What happened wasn’t fair. But we can’t change it. If you want to work, we’ll figure something out. Maybe start small, see what’s out there, make some contacts.”

The last thing I wanted to do was meet people, have them looking at me and judging me. And I was an art historian. That’s not a field with tons of openings to begin with. All those years, all that work, for nothing. But none of that was Michael’s fault. He had married someone optimistic and ambitious, not a lump who lived in a blanket fort for five weeks. Not someone who burst into tears at every trigger word like painting, art, or even friend.

He’d never doubted me, and he’d made this move to give me a fresh start. I had to get my shit together. I owed it to him. Not that he’d ever say so.

But then he added, oh-so-casually, “You know, the firm has a support group for spouses. Maybe there’s something like that in the neighborhood too.”