Friday night
Mitch came in at ten after ten, smelling like diesel and the inside of a cab. He set down his thermos and his lunch cooler and kissed the top of my head, and I felt him notice something was off.
My husband is twenty-eight and not a talker. He has his father’s long jaw and his father’s way of looking at a problem before he touches it.
I told him all of it, in order. I did not cry. I had done enough of that. I told him about the hall, and the deposit, and the phone call, and the women at the plant.
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He listened with both hands flat on the table. When I finished, he sat there for a long time. Then he took his keys out of his pocket, set them on the table, and turned them over once, very slowly.
“She told Aunt Rosalie you were worn out,” he said.
“She told everybody.”
“I’d have called you.” His voice was quiet. “I’d have known if you were sick of it. I’d have known.”
“I know, Mitch.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because you were four hours from here, and you’d have driven the whole way mad.” He almost smiled. “I would’ve.” I watched him take it in. My husband does not blow up. He goes still, like a deer in a field when a truck door shuts.
“I’ll go see her in the morning,” he said.
“Mitch.”
“Not mad. I’ll just ask her.” I knew better than to argue. It was his mother. There are some doors a wife cannot walk through for a husband, and that was one.
“The girls from the plant are doing something at the river park,” I said. “At two.” He looked up.
“Come after,” I said. “Whatever she says. Come after.”
Saturday
I woke at six, because the baby had her feet in my ribs. Mitch was already dressed. He drank his coffee standing up and did not say much. At seven-thirty he went out the door, and I heard his truck go down our gravel, slow, like he was in no hurry to arrive.
I stayed home with my feet up on the couch and a piece of toast I could not eat. At one-thirty, I put on the mint green sweater my aunt gave me last Christmas, the soft one that still fits over the belly, and I drove myself to the river.