And that phone call didn’t break my heart so much as show me, with total clarity, that there had never been anything there to break it — that I had been performing a marriage for an audience of one who wasn’t watching.

“Listen carefully,” I said, and the tremor was gone.

“I am never going to cook for your mother again.

I am never going to wait on your family again.

And I am not going to be your wife.

I’m filing for divorce.” I ended the call on the sound of him starting to sputter, and let the phone drop onto the sheet.