I woke up differently.
Not in a dramatic way. Not with the sudden bright awareness of a person whose life has changed overnight and who feels it immediately in their bones. It was quieter than that. I simply opened my eyes and lay still for a moment and realised that the particular weight I had been waking up with every morning for six months was not there in the same way. Not gone entirely. But lighter. The way things feel lighter when you have stopped carrying them alone.
I lay there for a while and let that feeling exist without immediately doing something about it.
Then I got up and went to the kitchen.
He was there.
He looked up when I came in and said good morning and the way he said it was different from every other morning. Not in tone or volume or any measurable way. Just in
