It’s because of Hen that we have a house at all. I give her all the credit. She found the place. We used to talk more, when things were still new between us. When we were still eager to learn about each other. That’s what that time was about. It was about talking and listening, learning about the other—interacting, observing, experiencing. It takes time. I’ve been trying to remember these earlier moments more, reflect on them, focus on them.

It was Hen who convinced me to take the job at the feed mill, and I’m still working there, all these years later. I remember it well. She didn’t tell me to do it. We talked about it not long after getting together. If she’d just told me to do it, to take the job, who knows, maybe I wouldn’t have done it. An order might have turned me off. I told her how I’d met Mr. Flowers, the owner of the mill, how he’d offered me the job. We discussed the timing and if it was the right job for me.

“It sounds pretty good. It’s steady work, physical, and the mill’s not going anywhere. The money’s okay. There doesn’t seem to be much downside.”

We were lying outside in the grass, in the shade, where it was coolest.

Yeah, I said.

We were both on our backs, hands behind our heads, looking straight up, only our feet touching.

We would talk about many different things, but often about the future, where we’d be years down the road. We preferred what hadn’t happened yet to what had.

“You need to work. But people have to make up their own minds,” she said. “When they don’t, it doesn’t always end well. This has to be your choice to make, not mine.”

This is how we used to talk. Back and forth. Open. Interested. Supportive.

What would you do if you were me? I asked.

“I would take the job. It’s fair pay for honest work. It’s good experience. But it doesn’t matter what I would do. I’m not the one doing the job. Try answering this: What do you want?”

What do I want from what? I asked.

“I’ll say it again. Think about it: what do you want?”

That’s when I kissed her. She closed her eyes as I did it. I can still picture it whenever I want to, replaying it in my mind, over and over. That’s a detail I could tell Terrance about. If I wanted to. But I don’t want to.

I owe what I have now—my job, my house, my life—to my wife. All of it. I am who I am because of Hen. I have to keep that in mind. I can never forget that. She can be erratic at times, frustrating, unpredictable, and, recently, standoffish. But she’s supported me through everything. That’s what a relationship is for: mutual support and acceptance. No one understands me the way she does. And that means something.

To me, it means everything.