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Everything ends. Perhaps I am responding to what I often consider the reassuring bluntness of describing everything that happens after what other books or lives might consider the last chapter—in this case, a divorce. I, personally, like to have reminders that I’ve changed my life before and can do…

Eventually I grew tired of trying to write down my thoughts. I wrote down other things I heard. Perhaps the journal did something to my memory, because since then I have often thought about one story I know is in there. It goes like this: A woman often speaks to me about a man she says she loves bu…

On that first morning of my first year of being alone, I woke up too early, and looked around the way I imagined my husband might have. I remember knowing completely that he was the love of my life, which means nothing that can be explained except maybe that I knew the back of his neck as well as t…

At first our parents and friends seemed to think it was cute, and we agreed. When my husband went to university, his parents—gently at first—tried to suggest he “test the waters,” and when he resisted, they got a little more forceful in their recommendations. Once I overheard my mother on the phone…

What happened after that? I don’t even know how to answer that question. Which after? Here is where I wish I had a straight line to follow. There are some moments that seem to matter. As a condition of his visa, he had to stop working for a period after we moved, and I was working more than ever. H…