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You don’t think of a potential life outside your marriage unless you’ve already destroyed something essential about it. Once you can think like that, you’ve created the possibility that it could end. Close to the end, I’d begun to imagine that new life. I’d thought it would be like turning a page. …

When I was young I’d sworn I’d never marry. I’d understood, back then, that commitment was a trap that closed off otherwise accessible exit routes. Then I had therapy for ten years and learned that commitment was a gift, the ability to give your heart to another. To forsake all others.

Then, mor…

Her husband was kind, steady, utterly committed to her, the object of a long-ago crush. It was the second marriage for them both. He was gray and grizzled but had been comfortable in his middle-aged body for at least a decade, unlike the rest of us, who weren’t sure yet that we were ready to give u…

We walked to the nursery for more seeds but the store was closed until further notice.

I made bread with the child but the yeast was dead so we made flatbreads.

John said we’d move to Australia if everything broke down, and for once I was too tired to care.

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On a night we’d agreed to fuc…

When John forgot to pick up the dry cleaning and I blamed him for it, he insisted that I give him credit for trying. It’s not my fault, he said, believing it totally.

By then I’d started responding, Nothing ever is.

John seethed at me until I apologized. For what? I didn’t know. He used my no…