At work, I helped my new team fix a scheduling problem that had cost the plant hundreds of hours each month.

We celebrated with pizza in a conference room.

No one mentioned my husband.

They knew me as Tessa, the operations manager who remembered everyone’s names and asked technicians what was happening before deciding how to change a process.

One Friday Silas arrived in Charlotte wearing clean jeans and carrying two tickets for a community theater performance.

He had checked whether I was free rather than arranging my evening for me.

We ate dinner afterward at a tiny restaurant where the waiter spilled water and apologized repeatedly.