Daniel stares at them.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No,” you say. “I’m finally not kidding myself.”
He starts pacing.
Just three steps one way, then back, but the energy of it fills the kitchen like spilled gasoline. “You know what this is?” he says. “This is your family poisoning you against me. They’ve always hated me. Michael never gave me a chance.”
Michael almost smiles.
“I gave you plenty of chances,” he says. “You mistook them for weakness.”
Daniel points at him. “Stay out of my marriage.”
The sentence is so absurd it nearly knocks the breath out of you. My marriage. As if the institution itself is a shield. As if vows transform your body into a permitted impact zone. You look at the man you married in a courthouse dress with pearl buttons and a bouquet of supermarket roses and see him clearly enough now that the memory feels like evidence from another woman’s life.
