“I did. Apparently, the director isn’t listening.”
We laughed, but I could see the discomfort in his face.
“Do you want me to speak to her?” I asked.
“No. I can handle it. If she approaches me again, I’ll be clearer.”
He took my hand.
“Rachel, I need you to understand something. I love you. I don’t want her attention, and I don’t want to hurt her. But I won’t allow her to disrespect you, either.”
I believed him because his behavior had always matched his words.
In seventeen years of marriage, we’d survived unemployment, a difficult pregnancy, the death of his father, and a period when we could barely afford our mortgage.
We’d also survived the less dramatic challenges that nobody posts about online: exhaustion, misunderstandings, arguments over money, and the occasional evening when one of us fell asleep before finishing a sentence.
Our marriage wasn’t perfect.
It was real.
