When I mentioned the shift, he said: I’m tired.
I said: so am I.
He said: you’re home, though.
He said it without malice.
He said it as if being home were the solution to the tiredness rather than a contributing factor.
I did not argue.
I had become very efficient at managing things, and that efficiency had made it easy for Carter to stop managing things, because when one person is very good at running a system the other person’s involvement becomes optional rather than essential.
I knew this.
I had not figured out how to change it.
The Saturday before this story properly begins was a Saturday in October.
Nora had been teething for eleven days.
She had spent the night in the specific misery of teething, which is not dramatic but is relentless, the low-grade discomfort that produces a fussiness that is not crying exactly but is not not crying, a sound that is impossible to sleep through.
I had been awake since three.
By ten in the morning I had made breakfast, broken up two arguments between Caleb and Owen, changed Nora twice, gotten Sophie dressed after a forty-minute negotiation about which socks, and started the laundry.
Carter came downstairs at ten.
He looked rested.
He had the specific look of someone who has slept eight hours and who has not registered the fact that anyone else has not.
He poured coffee.
He looked at his phone.
He did not look at the kitchen, which contained the aftermath of breakfast and two children still arguing at the table and Henry attempting to feed Nora some of his toast, which Nora could not eat but which Henry was offering with great generosity.
I wiped my hands on the dish towel.
I said: Carter.
He looked up.
I said: could you watch them for twenty minutes? I need to shower.
He looked at his phone.
He sighed.
He said: I can’t.
He said: I have a nine o’clock tee time.
He said: you know Saturdays are my mornings.
He put his coffee down.
He looked at me.
He looked at me the way he had been looking at me lately, with the specific expression of someone assessing a situation and finding it different from what they prefer.
He said: you know, you used to be so energetic.
He said: now you’re just always tired and no fun anymore.
He said it in the tone of someone identifying a problem rather than participating in it.
He picked up his golf bag.
He walked to the door.
I said: have a good game.
He went.
The door closed.
I stood in the kitchen.
Nora was on my hip.
Henry was telling Owen something that Owen did not believe.
Mia was at the table with a book she was pretending to read while actually monitoring the situation.
Caleb was somewhere upstairs, recently.
Sophie was in the living room attempting a cartwheel.
I said: have a good game.
I said it without sarcasm.
I said it with the specific clarity of a person who has just made a decision.
Something had shifted.
Not into anger.
I do not think what I felt was anger.
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