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much preferred the hand-to-mouth shovel method. I’d be picking bits of cottage cheese out of his ears for days.
    “Yes,” he said, lifting his chin almost imperceptibly.
    “You told me you were working late.”
    “I did work late. And then I stopped by the dealership.”
    “Um-hmm.” I pressed my lips into a thin line to keep from saying more.
    “So, what do you think?”
    I gave him a slightly confused look. “What do I think about what?”
    “The car.”
    I placed the brochure on the table. “It’s not exactly child-friendly,” I said. “And not very practical for us. At least, not right now.”
    “Well, it’s kind of too late,” Martin said. He picked the brochure up and gave it a little wave in the air. “I bought it.”
    I looked at Martin, my mouth open in a soft O. “What?”
    He sighed and dropped back against his chair. “Don’t look at me like that. We have the money, Cadence. And my mom pointed out you have your Explorer for carting Charlie around. I needed a better car for commuting.” There it was—my husband’s linear brain. A plus B equals C.
    “You talked to your
mother
about this?”
    “BMWs are German cars. I wanted her opinion.”
    “But not mine.”
    “Please don’t start,” Martin said.
    “Whatever, Martin.” I didn’t know what else to say to him. That he made such a big purchase on his own was unsettling, but I swallowed my concerns.
His money, his decision,
I thought.
Who was I to tell him no? He works so hard—he’s entitled.
    The year after Charlie turned one, Martin’s working late stopped being the exception and became the rule. He rarely called to let me know when to expect him home, and when I’d try to reach him, he claimed he had turned his cell phone off so he could concentrate on whatever code he was writing.
    “I was worried about you,” I said one morning after Charlie’ssecond birthday in August. He had come home after I was already asleep. “Do you really need to work late
every
night?”
    “I’m doing it for us,” he said. “For Charlie. I want to get into management, and the only way that’s going to happen is if I show them I’m willing to put in the hours.” He paused. “I’m playing golf with a couple guys from the office today, too.”
    I rolled over in bed to look at him. “You are? Is it a work thing?” Microsoft often held employee engagement events—basketball tournaments or picnics on Lake Sammamish—but Martin usually told me about them beforehand.
    “No, I took a vacation day,” he said. He sat up and patted me on the hip, the same way he might have petted a dog. “I need some time with the guys.”
    “Oh,” I said. I paused. “What time do you think you’ll be back? I could make us ribs.” My recipe for smoky, oven-baked ribs was almost always a guaranteed lure to bring him home.
    He stood up and walked toward the bathroom. “I think I’ll be late, honey. Jeff wants to do drive practice and walk all eighteen holes. We’ll probably grab dinner out, too.”
    “Okay,” I said, and on the surface, it was. I wasn’t bothered that Martin wanted to play golf with his friends. It was that he made plans without letting me know. I also hoped he would want to spend at least part of his day off with his wife and son. Still, I didn’t push the issue.
    Instead, I tried to up the romance in our relationship. I put sweet notes in his lunches and made sure to kiss him passionately before he left for work. I cooked the food he adored, and despite my insecurities about my post-pregnancy body, I donned the skimpy lingerie he was so fond of in an effort to reignite our sex life. One night, I arranged for my sister to babysit Charlie and planned an elaborate dinner, being sure to text Martin a reminder that we had the entire evening to ourselves. As the candles burned low, I sat in the kitchen wearing a scant red dress, crying. He strolled throughthe door at midnight, claiming he’d been busy at work and simply forgot about our