And once the crack was there, I could not stop the rest of the wall from showing its seams.
Because if I was honest — and standing in that living room, I was suddenly, brutally honest — there had been signs, and I had spent ten years explaining every one of them away.
The tea had always been for me and only me; she made coffee for Lucien, juice for Elspeth, but for me it was always the same chamomile, always made by her own hands, never store-bought, never something I fixed myself.
There had been the way she watched me drink it — I’d read it as care, the fond attention of a woman making sure you finished your medicine, and it was attention, but I had the flavor of it wrong.
There had been ten years of small competitions I’d pretended not to notice: the way she’d correct me about Lucien’s preferences in front of him, the way any decision I made about my own household would be gently undone by dinnertime, the way my generosity toward her seemed, somehow, to make her colder rather than warmer.
I had catalogued all of it, over the years, under headings like she’s from a different generation and she misses being needed and it’s just her way. I had done what I have since learned people always do with someone they’ve decided to love: I had written the kindest possible caption under every troubling photograph, and hung the whole collection on the wall, and called it a happy family.