Two weeks pass.

  I still make the lunches. I still fold the laundry. I still make Sebastian’s coffee at six forty-five and the fruit still looks like a face.

  But something has gone out of it. I feel the difference even when I don’t look at it directly.

  I answer Elise’s questions. Did you eat. Do you have homework. Are you cold. All the necessary ones on schedule. What I’ve stopped, without deciding to stop, are the soft ones after. The and did you like it. The tell me more. I still kiss her head at night. I still mean it. It just doesn’t carry anything extra anymore.

  I’m tired. That’s all this is.

  A neighbor’s kid comes over on Thursday. Six years old, gap-toothed. I kneel down when she comes in and ask about her favorite animal and she says, after a long pause, a capybara.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I actually laugh.

  Across the room Elise goes still.

  She watches me talk to this other kid. She watches my face. I see her watching and I look away.

  She’s too young to understand.

  But she’s building something in her head. I can see it. Some story that explains why Mama is different. She doesn’t have the right words for what she’s actually seeing so she uses the ones she has.

  Mama is quieter than Annie. Mama doesn’t laugh like Annie laughs.

  She’s not wrong. She’s also completely wrong. And I can’t explain the difference to a five-year-old because I’m not sure I can explain it to myself.

  That night I sit on the back step after everyone’s asleep. The air is cool. The house is behind me.

  You could leave.

  The thought arrives without any drama. I’ve had it before but I always put it away quickly. This time I don’t. I let it sit in the air.

  You could leave and you could keep yourself. What’s left of yourself.

  I sit with it for a long time.

  Then I go inside. I lock the door the way Sebastian always asks. I lie down next to a man who is pretending to sleep and I think:

  How much longer can I do this.

  I don’t answer.

  Not yet.

  But the question is still there in the morning.