I'd arrive home from work at five-thirty, pet the dog, and wash the dishes. Two forks, two wine glasses, and one plate with water to the rim and last night's soggy dinner floating on the surface of the water. If the sink was emitting it's habitual foul odor, which I'd perversely come to associate with the relief of coming home, I'd run the garbage disposal, which the dog hated. Today, I smell nothing. I go to my room and notice he's left a water glass on the bedside table, a quarter full. I remember a conversation from last night.
"You already have a glass. Why don't you put water in that one?" I'd asked.
"It's a wine glass," he said, putting undue emphasis on the word wine.
"So?"
"It has wine in it."
"So finish the wine and have some water."
"The wine makes me thirsty."
After that I went to bed.
When he'd get home, we had a habit of taking walks, never the same route. If it was summer, as it was now, and he'd been working late, he'd arrive home just in time for us to walk at sunset. The houses were all expensive and some were pretty. He commented on all of them, and it made me happy to hear him talk.
"What about that one? It's a Spanish adobo style. That's your favorite."
"I like it fine," I'd say.
"I'll buy it for you."
It was a Wednesday when we wandered down a street we'd never walked on and passed the house with the brick walk and aqua blue shutters. It's must've been a 1 or 2 bedroom, and I'm sure it cost a million dollars.
"At least a million!" I said.
There was a real estate sign in the front lawn.
"Open house," he read. "Next Saturday. Should we go?"
I didn't want to go to the open house, so instead I ended things that night. It was a sort of cowardly thing to do, but I couldn't bear to wait until after we'd gone to the open house for the small house on the quiet street with the brick walk and the blue shutters.