I slid my wedding ring across the table.
“But I can’t stay married while you learn whether you actually want the person I already am.”
He didn’t touch the ring.
I left it there.
There would be practical things to sort out.
Our house.
Our marriage.
The life we’d built.
But I didn’t need to solve them that afternoon to know my decision was final.
A month later, on a warm Saturday, Maya asked me to go out for lunch.
I put on the green dress I’d worn when Jake proposed.
Not to reclaim that night.
I simply liked the dress.
Before we left, I caught sight of my shoulder in the mirror.
The portrait was still imperfect.
One eye slightly uneven.
A little shadow where there shouldn’t have been one.
I touched it.
At 18, I’d thought the tattoo was the closest I could come to keeping my mother with me.
