Over the next week or so my husband became increasingly helpful and thoughtful. Morphing into the attentive loving man that I had missed for months, possibly more than a year.
And I became more and more uncomfortable.
I mean honestly, the man told me that he wanted a separation. I wasn’t hearing things, I wasn’t drunk, I was wide awake when he said it. And I made him repeat the words out loud to make sure the he knew what he was saying.
However one week, four meals and a bouquet of flowers later, I came in the house after work one day to find him painting the stairs going to the ground floor.
I spoke quietly, using the voice I reserve for small children holding sharp objects or escaped mental patients wielding incendiary devices.
“What are you doing?” He looks from me to the paint brush in his hand and then back to me.
“Um…painting the steps.”
“Great! Why?”
theburnpile 