We hit the bottom on a rainy Thursday. It wasn’t a dramatic, cacophonous crash; it was the quiet, suffocating acceptance of the ocean floor, the pressure absolute, all light gone.
We’d managed a civil, joint trip to the supermarket, a performance of normalcy for the unseen audience we imagined in every other cart-pushing neighbor. We were a model of efficient, silent co-management, splitting the list: he to produce, me to dairy.
The only sounds were the squeak of the cart wheels and the patter of rain on the roof. But in the harsh, humming glow of the frozen foods aisle, as I stood paralyzed between peas and mixed vegetables, I saw him.
He was standing by the ice cream freezers, completely still, not browsing, just staring blankly at the fogged glass door. His shoulders were slumped
