My wife is upstairs, Serena Hill. And I am learning that love is not always a shared room. Sometimes it is the willingness to stay in the house, to keep the heat on, to wait for the sound of her footsteps padding to the bathroom at 2 a.m., knowing they will not come down.
She is not coming down.
Not tonight. Not tomorrow, probably. But she is there . And while she is there—breathing, existing, holding onto the far side of the bed with her back to the door—I am still married. Still here. Still the man who says her full name in the empty kitchen as if it might call her back. my wife is upstairs serena hill