“I don’t want that to be the only way you ever hear what I was thinking.”

He opened mine and read it aloud.

It held an apology for confusing provision with presence, memories of the first apartment we’d shared, and a confession that he had been afraid I would see him differently once he was no longer the unshakable surgeon.

I listened without interrupting.

Then I told him something I hadn’t fully admitted to myself: I had sometimes wished for one single night when he would come home early with no heroic explanation, when we could be boring together.

He laughed sadly.