Chapter 4 — Two Strangers at Breakfast

Those first weeks of Hal’s retirement, I saw the full size of what we’d let happen, because there was nowhere left to hide from it.

We had gotten very skilled, over the decades, at not noticing the distance, because busyness is a wonderful anesthetic.

When you are exhausted and overscheduled, the emptiness between two people can pass for peace; you’re simply too tired to feel it.

But retirement stripped the busyness away, and underneath it was the truth, laid bare at every meal: we had nothing to say to each other.