The house is still at five in the morning.

  I like it that way. This is the only hour that belongs to me, so I fill it with everything nobody sees. Laundry folded on the kitchen table. Elise’s lunch packed with the crust cut off because she said once that the crust tastes different and I believed her. A small fruit arrangement in her lunchbox, the pieces lined up like a face, because she laughed at it the first time and I have been doing it ever since.

  She probably doesn’t even look at it anymore.

  I fold that thought and put it somewhere else.

  Sebastian’s coffee sits on the counter at six forty-five. He comes downstairs between six forty-five and six fifty every morning. I know this the same way I know to breathe. He won’t say anything about it. He never does. But I’ll know if I didn’t make it, and that’s enough.

  Is it enough?

  I smooth the napkin in Elise’s lunchbox. I write her a small note, fold it, unfold it, fold it again. I’ve never asked if she reads them. I think if I asked and she said no, I’d still keep writing them. I think that says something about me I’d rather not look at.

  Sebastian comes down at six forty-seven.

  He picks up the coffee without looking at it. He sits. He eats. His eyes are on his phone the whole time, the screen lighting up his face in the dim kitchen.

  “Morning,” I say.

  “Mm.”

  “You have that meeting today?”

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  “Yeah.”

  “I hope it goes well.”

  He scrolls.

  I sit across from him and wait for something. I couldn’t tell you exactly what. Just something. A question. Anything that says I’m in the room.

  Elise arrives like she always does, loudly, hair flat on one side, still soft with sleep. She climbs into her chair and looks around the kitchen like she’s seeing it for the first time.

  “Is Annie coming today?”

  Sebastian looks up from his phone for the first time all morning. He smiles. Small. Private. Not for anyone in particular.

  “Maybe,” he says.

  Elise cheers. I pour her milk.

  That smile. He doesn’t smile like that at me anymore.

  I watch him over the rim of my cup. He’s back on his phone. I tell myself I’m imagining things.

  I’m good at telling myself that.

  After breakfast Sebastian leaves without a goodbye kiss. He used to. First year of marriage, every morning without fail. Now it’s just: “Lock the door.”

  “I will,” I say.

  I always do.

  Elise runs to the window and presses her palms flat against the glass to watch his car. His car is the kind people slow down to look at. I don’t know the model name, only that the payments probably cost more than the rent on my first apartment. She narrates it like it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened all week. “He’s turning. He turned. He’s gone.” Then she runs upstairs to get her backpack.

  She never does that when I leave.

  She’s never noticed that she doesn’t.

  I wash the dishes. The water runs hot, hotter than comfortable. I don’t adjust it. I think I used to. I’m not sure when I stopped.

  The afternoon comes quiet after I drop Elise at school. I sit on the edge of our bed and look at nothing for a while. My reflection is in the mirror across the room. I’m not old. I’m not ugly. I’m just tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix.

  I get up. I smooth my clothes. I go back downstairs.

  Because dinner won’t make itself. And because, if I’m honest, I still want to make it. I used to have a job once, before Elise was born. Sebastian said it made more sense for one of us to stay home, and his salary made the decision easy. Not for Sebastian who eats without comment. Not entirely for Elise. For me. For the part of me that still believes if you love someone consistently and quietly and completely, they’ll eventually turn around and see it.

  They’ll see it.

  I start on the vegetables.

  I still believe that. I have to.