But over the previous year, something between Daniel and me had changed.
He started working later.
He checked his phone constantly.
He sometimes carried it into the bathroom, something he’d never bothered doing before.
During dinner, I’d tell him about my day and realize halfway through that he wasn’t listening.
Whenever I asked whether anything was wrong, he had an explanation.
Work was exhausting.
He hadn’t been sleeping well.
His boss was demanding.
He was stressed about deadlines.
Some days he blamed headaches.
Other days, he blamed too much coffee.
None of those explanations seemed particularly unreasonable.
That was what made everything so difficult to recognize.
Each excuse sounded believable on its own.
It was only later that I understood how many excuses he’d been stacking together.
***
A few weeks before everything happened, I signed up for a local charity race.
It was a ten-kilometer event organized to raise money for families caring for children with long-term illnesses.
