What kind of wife complains about that?
So I didn’t.
I became the wife who packed lunches at six in the morning.
The wife who remembered his conference dates.
The wife who kept extra shirts in the car because he’d forgotten his again.
The wife who told our daughter, “Daddy will be home soon,” even when I wasn’t sure he would.
And Ben loved me.
I never doubted that.
That was what made everything so confusing.
Because sometimes a person can love you and still make you feel completely invisible.
I just didn’t understand that yet.
I understood it on a Tuesday morning.
It started innocently.
Ben had been working almost every night for two weeks.
The previous evening, he’d come home after midnight, barely eaten, and fallen asleep sitting on the edge of our bed.
I’d watched him for several minutes before quietly taking his shoes off.
The next morning, I decided to surprise him.
I packed his favorite sandwich.
No tomatoes.
Extra turkey.
The bread toasted exactly the way he liked it.
I added apple pie because he always claimed apple pie counted as breakfast if nobody was watching.
Then I slipped a small note underneath the fork.
