The thought of retirement used to be a dream, a shimmering mirage of endless golf games and undisturbed naps. Now, sitting in the humid traffic, Jose found it was more like a mirage that promised fun but delivered… this.
Endless grocery lists, for one. And the cooking. God, the cooking. Julie, his wife, had developed an uncanny knack for leveraging their daughter’s disability – “our big baby,” as she called Diane – into a get-out-of-kitchen-free card of "She’s using crutches, Jose; she needs me."
Jose sighed, the familiar bitterness bubbling up. He thought of all the usual women, women who should’ve been settled in their husbands’ homes, but Diane instead ended up with an already married man like Lawson. And then the main wife returns, and she's packed out like a forgotten bag of luggag
