Still, I fantasized about the tumbleweed playing songs for our kids on his guitar, telling them the story of the night we first met. Even my daydreams hit a wall pretty soon, though. I cringed to think of him hating the tedium of meeting a child’s needs, over and over again; cringed to think of him longing for the road again, the beds of strangers.

At twenty-two, I would have been desperate to make him want all the things he’d never wanted. By thirty-five, I’d learned you can’t make anyone want anything. That was what I told my therapist, anyway. In my heart, I said, Maybe you can? Let me try.