“Who would ever look at you, chicken?” the husband m0cked, not realizing that the reckoning was getting closer and closer.

Megan Carter stood by the stove, carefully turning several chicken meatballs in the pan when her husband Scott Whitaker stepped into the apartment and tossed his keys onto the table with a sharp metallic sound that made her shoulders tense even though she did not look at him. The smell of oil and garlic filled the small kitchen while the quiet evening outside their building in Chicago, Illinois pressed against the windows like a dim gray curtain.

“Is that all?” Scott muttered with irritation as he leaned over the counter and stared at the frying pan with open disappointment. “A man spends all day working and comes home to the same boring dinner in the same small apartment.”

Megan quietly placed the meatballs on a plate and set mashed potatoes beside them while keeping her expression calm, yet inside she felt the familiar knot tightening in her chest because she already knew the conversation that would follow. Twenty three years of marriage had taught her the rhythm of his moods and the rhythm rarely changed.