The unraveling of this meticulously curated reality did not arrive with the sound of a slamming door or a drunken confession, nor did it come with the dramatic flair of a cinematic confrontation. Instead, the death of my marriage was announced by the soft, digital chime of a notification on a tablet left carelessly on the kitchen island.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, the kind of nondescript, grey day that blends into the background of memory, and the house was filled with the heavy, peaceful silence that I had always cherished. Robert was in the shower, the water running in a distant hum, and I was merely wiping down the counters when the screen lit up. It was a mundane action, a reflex born of habit, that led me to glance at the preview of the email that had just arrived.
The subject line was innocuous enough to anyone else—a confirmation of a reservation—but to me, it was a anomaly, a glitch in the matrix of our shared schedule. We had no trips planned, no anniversaries impending, and yet, there it was: a booking for a romantic getaway at a bed and breakfast in a coastal town three hours away, for two people, neither of whom was me.
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