That afternoon, standing there with a paper plate in front of me, they finally put a name to what they actually believed I was.
I set the plate down on Richard’s untouched napkin, right beside his brisket.
“No apology,” I said. “And no second chance.”
He rolled his eyes at me, the exact same way he rolled them at telemarketers and slow drivers. “Claire, don’t turn this into a performance.”
“It stopped being a performance the moment you decided silence was cheaper than defending your wife.”
I walked to the parking lot while the laughter behind me started up again, thinner this time, uncertain of itself now that I was actually leaving instead of sitting back down like I always had before.
At the Richmond airport, I bought a one-way ticket to Denver and turned my phone completely off.
Richard, I knew, would assume I was cooling off at some hotel, that I’d be back by morning ready to resume paying for everyone’s comfort like I always had. What he didn’t know was that I had spent the last six months quietly preparing to stop.
