My husband claimed he was exhausted from a twelve-hour shift—until I learned he’d left work at noon, and someone began turning our front-door handle.

The plate slid from my wet hands just as my left foot gave way.

I caught the edge against the sink, sending greasy water across my white T-shirt. Pain shot through the bandages wrapped around my ankle and toes. I grabbed the counter before my knees hit the cabinet.

From the dark sofa, Adrian barely looked away from his phone.

“You missed a plate.”

I stared at the back of his head. “I can barely stand, Adrian.”

He glanced at me, expressionless, then lowered his eyes to the screen.

The faucet kept running. Behind me, the kitchen table was buried beneath unopened mail, two grocery bags, and a laundry basket Adrian had promised to carry upstairs three days earlier. We lived in a narrow second-floor apartment in Milwaukee’s Bay View neighborhood, where every sound traveled from one room to another. I could hear his thumbs moving quickly across the glass.

Then he smiled.

It was small and private, the kind of smile he hadn’t given me in weeks.

When he noticed me watching, he locked the screen and pressed the phone against his thigh.

“Then stop pretending this is my problem,” he said.

I turned off the faucet. “Your supervisor said you left at noon.”

His body changed before his face did. His shoulders lifted. His free hand tightened on the sofa cushion.

He looked toward the entrance.

The phone vibrated beneath his palm.

Then the front-door handle moved.

Once.

Twice.

Someone outside was using a key.

The door opened, and Adrian’s younger sister, Tessa, stepped inside carrying a canvas tote and a thick folder. She froze when she saw me standing at the sink.

Adrian rose so fast his phone fell between the cushions.

Tessa looked from him to my bandaged foot.

“You didn’t tell her?” she asked.

“Tell me what?”

She slowly lifted the folder.