My wife, Harriet, lay beside me in the quiet of our new cottage, the soft rustle of the sheets like a distant tide. Out of nowhere a Facebook ping rang, and a strangerPoppyhad sent a request to be added. I clicked, accepted, and typed, Do we know each other?
She replied, I heard youre married, but I still love you.
She was a face from a longago summer, caught in a photograph where the light made her seem almost radiant. I closed the chat, turned my gaze back to Harriet, whose breathing was steady after a day that felt as endless as a woolly fog rolling over the moors.
Looking at her, I sensed a deep safety, as if the very walls of the house, newly built and still warm, could cradle us both. She was far from the bustling market town where she had grown up, a place where shed spent every hour encircled by family. When she was upset, her mother would sit beside her with a kettle of tea, letting her weep into the steam. Her brother would crack a joke, his laughter echoing like a church bell, and her father would appear with a basket of fresh scones, the smell of butter and jam filling the kitchen. Yet she trusted me with a faith as solid as stone.
All those memories swirled like the smoke from an unseen fireplace, and I lifted my phone, pressed Block with a decisive tap. I turned back to Harriet, rested my head on the pillow beside her, and fell asleep into the same dreamwoven night.
I am a man, not a child. I have sworn fidelity, and that vow will hold. I will forever fight to be the husband who does not stray, the keeper of a family that stays whole.
