“I know that now.”
“Did you ask me?”
My overwork. His insecurity. Linda’s assumptions.
“Why would you care if I sold it?”
Michael looked surprised.
“Because we live here.”
“We could buy another home together.”
“With what?”
“You make more than enough money for a mortgage.”
“Not for what you would want.”
“What do I want?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“No. You don’t.”
He looked exhausted.
“I thought you were preparing to leave.”
“Because I might sell a condo?”
“Because you were never home. Because you stopped talking about next year. Because you changed the beneficiary information on one of your accounts.”
“How do you know that?”
“I saw the letter.”
“What letter?”
“It was on your desk.”
“You went through my desk.”
“No. It was sitting there.”
Two months earlier, I had updated an old retirement account after my company changed providers. Michael never been listed as sole beneficiary. My parents had originally been listed because the account predated our marriage. After we married, I changed it to Michael. When my sister Sarah had her daughter, I later adjusted several estate documents so that if both Michael and I died together, some assets would go into a trust for my niece.
