The fear was that I would look at him in the closet, open my eyes too soon, and ruin the only chance I had to end this without another year of his explanations.

So I waited.

Waiting, I learned, is not passivity when you have already moved every piece that can be moved.

Waiting can be the last form of control available to a person who has been told, for years, that her job is to remain still.

PART 3

I did not go to the airport.

For years, Daniel had turned every disagreement into a public performance.

If we argued before a dinner, he arrived charming and wounded, so that I looked unreasonable by comparison.