Now I live alone in the house that once held our life. Sometimes I still smell tobacco in his study. Sometimes I miss the roommate who at least shared my air.
I once believed the punishment was losing intimacy. I thought it was the silence.
I was wrong.
The punishment is knowing I built this loneliness myself. Two children—one never born, one never biologically ours—and a husband who loved a version of me that wasn’t real.
Jake calls often. He visits Michael in Oregon twice a year.
“Does he ever ask about me?” I always ask.
There’s always a pause.
“No, Mom,” Jake says gently. “He doesn’t.”
And I sit in the fading light, listening to the clock tick through the life I now have to finish alone.
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