Not because it was funny. Because Ryan had spent the entire marriage treating every injury he caused as if the real offense lay in my reaction. I was dramatic when I bled too long after the twins and asked for help. Dramatic when I wanted a night nurse because I was hallucinating from exhaustion. Dramatic when I said the house didn’t feel like mine anymore once he started filling it with his schedule, his staff, his “networking dinners,” and the women from marketing whose names he always made sound casual.
He never understood the difference between drama and consequence.
That was his fatal stupidity. He thought pain only counted when he felt it. Everything else, especially mine, was atmosphere.
I showered in ten minutes and dressed in cream silk and steel-gray wool.