I think about Jess in the kitchen, the way she keeps glancing at me like she’s waiting for permission to breathe.
It’s not like I can ask her to move out. I mean I could but she didn’t ask me when I was on the other side of this.
“So I just… coexist with her,” I say.
“For now,” he replies. “You focus on your own feelings. What you need. What you can and cannot handle.”
I lean back in the chair, actually considering it.
Dr. Brett folds his hands. “It can help to put a timeline on this. It doesn’t have to be rigid, but it avoids stagnation. Otherwise, people get comfortable in limbo and never move forward.”
“Yeah,” I murmur. Limbo pretty much describes our marriage for the last year.
“Now,” he continues, “I know from your history that you and Mrs. West saw Dr. Nina before. If you’d like, I can help book a session with her once that period ends.”
I nod slowly. “Maybe… sixty days?”
He nods back. “Sixty days is reasonable. Enough time to cool off, process, and then come back to the table with clearer heads.”
Sixty days.
Two months.
It feels both too long and nowhere near long enough.
“Alright,” he says. “Now, would you like to talk about how you’re going to bring this up to Mrs. West?”
I let out a short, dull laugh. “I guess I can’t just expect her to… read my mind.”
He doesn’t answer. Just looks at me expectantly.
I huff. “Fine.”
By the time the session ends, I have a clear script in my head. Or at least something close to one.
Dr. Brett helped me put together the words I’m supposed to say to my wife about why I will not be talking to her for the next sixty days.
I chose that number partly because I need it, and partly because Myles’s birthday is in February, just short of the two-month timeline.
I decide to wait until after the kids go to bed. No point dropping a bomb like that in the middle of the day.
When I come out, Jess already looks tense. More than usual. Like she hasn’t taken a full breath all morning.
So I do what I’ve usually done whenever she’s overwhelmed.
I take the kids.
“Alright,” I tell them, forcing a smile. “Movie time. You two pick something so Mom can have a minute.”
Jess glances at me like she wants to say something, then thinks better of it.
The boys immediately launch into a debate over what to watch. I sit on the couch beside them, pretending to referee, when I notice Jess out of the corner of my eye.
Something’s off.
She’s sitting at the kitchen table now, shoulders practically touching her ears, arms wrapped tight around herself. Her foot is bouncing so fast the chair is shaking.
“Jess?” I ask. “You okay?”
