She had not asked once in four months.

I knew what it had cost her to ask now.

I put down the plate I was wrapping.

“Wendy, if I stay, I’ll wake up every morning for the rest of my life in a house with a man I have to forgive again before breakfast.

And I’ll do it for two years, maybe three, because I’m stubborn.

And then one day I’ll be fifty and I’ll hate every single one of you for asking me to.”

She nodded at the floor.