I looked at her first. Not at Jason. Her little cheeks were pink from sleeping in the restaurant booth while adults clapped too loudly. A strand of hair stuck to her forehead. Her rabbit’s ear was pressed under her chin. She had no idea her father had chosen the drive home from his promotion dinner to declare her mother a burden.
Jason wanted a fight.
I could feel it as clearly as I could feel the seat belt across my chest. It was in the sideways glance he gave me, the small smile waiting for panic, the lifted edge of his mouth when he imagined me scrambling. He expected tears, outrage, pleading. He expected me to say, “But Jason, how will we manage?” He expected me to remind him that we were a team so he could tell me teams still needed standards. He expected to be the calm one. The reasonable one. The man setting boundaries with a wife who had gotten too comfortable.
I gave him nothing.
“Okay,” I said.
Jason blinked. “Okay?”
“Separate accounts,” I repeated calmly. “We can do that.”
His smile spread slowly, like he had won something. “Good. Finally.”
He leaned back into the driver’s seat, satisfied.
I turned toward the window again and watched Atlanta streak past.