The day after my husband told me that he wanted to separate, I stayed in bed late. Thinking. Calculating. Making lists in my head. It’s what I do to try to take control of a situation.

My process, so to speak.

Deciding that I needed sustenance in order to figure out how best to handle my soon-to-be status as a separated spouse, I went upstairs to our renovated Brooklyn brownstone kitchen and was greeted by the smell of breakfast and to the image of a bright sunny clean room, with my husband puttering around. When he saw me he smiled.

He smiled.

If this had been any other morning, I would have smiled back.

“Good morning!” He moved so quickly to kiss me I almost didn’t kiss him back.

I stood there taking in the whole scene, and wondered for one brief minute if I’d dreamed the whole separation thing up. But no, that would require me sleeping, which I definitely did.not.do.

Huh.

As I looked around the kitchen I saw both the cats eating from their bowls, orange juice in glasses and my husband’s very pleased face as he scrambled eggs with one hand and popped toast in the toaster with the other. A dishtowel lazily thrown over his shoulder.

Something’s wrong here.

Besides the fact that the previous night my husband very calmly explained to me from his side of the bed why he should move out of the house, there was something wrong and I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

A glitch in the Matrix.

Wait.

Eggs.

“What are you doing?”

He blinked slowly and looked at me quizzically.

“I’m making breakfast.”

“No. You’re making eggs.”

“What? You don’t want eggs? I can make you something else.”

For those of you confused, let me explain. I follow a primarily vegetarian diet, however, I do eat eggs and freshwater fish sometimes. My husband, however, is vegan.

Vegan’s don’t.eat.eggs.

Yesterday there were no eggs in the house. Which means that my husband, (the vegan), got up early, (which he also doesn’t do), got dressed, and went to the store to buy eggs, (a food that he doesn’t even believe in eating mind you), to cook me for breakfast. Something is very wrong.

Like when Neo saw the black cat twice kind of wrong. My mind is reeling.

I just stared at him for a second, calculating, searching his face for an answer.

“You don’t eat eggs.”

He smiled again. (There’s that damn cat again).

“What? I can’t make you breakfast? I’ve made them for you before.”

In about three seconds I had replayed the previous night’s conversation, calculated what my life insurance policy was worth and searched the room for small amber bottles of arsenic or any other poisonous substance that could be heated and cooked into a tasteless form. Finding nothing, I decided that a large cup of coffee was going to be necessary for me to properly mitigate exactly how my husband was trying to kill me.

“Are you ok?”

I put my mask back on and made coffee. Taking the full plate of food he offered I sat down and ate it slowly. I was trying to figure out if I had enough time to send a warning text to my best friend in California before the poison kicked in.