Chapter 28
Episode 28
The way he treats me around his friends is like I never exist in his world
The first time I noticed it, we were at a cookout at His house, the one with the big backyard and the rusted grill that always smoked too much. He’d been laughing with his boys, something about a football game I didn’t follow, and I stood off to the side holding a red plastic cup of punch. I waited for him to look over, to wave me into the circle, to rest his hand on the small of my back the way he used to. But he didn’t. He just kept talking, his voice loud and easy, and I was a ghost pressing against the chain-link fence.
It happened again the next weekend, at a bar on Constant Spring Road. His friend Donovan had just come back from overseas, and they were all slapping each other on the shoulders, ordering rounds of rum and Ting. I stood next to him, close enough to smell the cologne he’d put on before we left, and when I touched his arm, he flinched. Just a little. Then he stepped sideways to hand a bottle to someone else, and I was left holding the space where his elbow had been. When a girl I didn’t know asked who I was, he said, “Oh, that’s just my—” and then he stopped. He laughed. He said my name. Just my name. Nothing else. No “my wife,” no “the mother of my son.” Just my name, like I was someone he used to know.
I didn’t say anything that night. I rode home in the passenger seat with the window down, letting the hot wind dry the sting behind my eyes. He played music, some dancehall track I didn’t recognize, and hummed along. He didn’t ask if I was quiet. He didn’t notice.
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