“It was stupid.”
He almost smiled.
“Fair.”
They agreed on very little that morning, which was why the conversation mattered.
Thomas would stay at a friend’s apartment for several nights rather than assuming he could move back into a house Leah had temporarily left. Leah would remain with her sister. They would meet again in three days. They would look for a marriage counselor familiar with military families. Neither would use counseling as proof they had decided to stay married. It would be a place to decide honestly.
Before leaving, Leah glanced at his bag.
“What’s in there?”
Thomas knew she had noticed the shape of the scarf.
“A gift I bought you.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I’m not giving it to you today,” he said quickly.
That surprised her.
“Why not?”
Thomas looked at the bag. “Because I bought it thinking I’d walk off the pier, hand you something pretty, and we’d both know what it meant. I don’t think I knew what it meant.”
Leah’s expression changed by a fraction.
“Keep it for now,” she said.
“Okay.”
Mateo was waiting in the parking lot, pretending to study his phone.
“How bad?” he asked when Thomas got into the car.
Thomas looked back at the diner windows.
“Real.”
Mateo nodded as if that were enough.
The first counseling session was a disaster.
Thomas arrived early with a list of communication strategies he had found online. Leah saw the list and laughed in disbelief.
“You made a maintenance checklist for our marriage.”
“I thought being prepared was good.”
“This is exactly what I mean.”
Thomas felt attacked, then heard how quickly his mind used that word.
The counselor, a woman named Dr. Chen, asked him to put the paper away.
“Preparation isn’t the problem,” she said. “Using preparation to avoid uncertainty might be.”
