He had not set out to erase her.

He had simply never bothered to see her, and had mistaken his own incuriosity for the truth about who she was.

You cannot stay married to a man’s inattention.

And you cannot mend it either, because the thing that would have to change is not a behavior but a way of not-looking that has become the shape of his whole life.

She had spent eight years hoping he would finally turn and see her.

She understood now that he never would, not because he was cruel, but because he had never once thought there was anything there worth turning to look at.