My husband, Ethan, spat the words as if he were reprimanding a misbehaving pet, not speaking to his wife. I was sprawled on my back in the driveway, my cheek against the icy concrete, one arm bent painfully beneath my ribs. Above me, the sky over our quiet Ohio cul-de-sac looked offensively ordinary\u2014clear, blue, detached.I\u2019d walked outside carrying a tray of cupcakes I\u2019d baked for Ethan\u2019s birthday brunch. His friends were due any minute. His mother, Marilyn, had been \u201chelping\u201d since dawn\u2014which really meant she\u2019d rearranged my kitchen and criticized every move I made. When Ethan stepped out to grab the cooler, we exchanged words at the top of the driveway. It began quietly. Then his jaw clenched, his tone sharpened. I remember the abrupt tug of his shoulder when he grabbed for the tray. I remember stumbling back, my heel snagging where the driveway met the lawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember hitting the pavement.The pain didn\u2019t arrive the way you\u2019d think. It felt as if my body skipped over pain and went straight to\u2026 emptiness. I tried to push myself up, to draw my knees toward me, and realized my legs weren\u2019t responding. I lifted my head and stared at them the way you stare at a stranger\u2019s shoes.Marilyn\u2019s sandals clicked beside me. \u201cOh my God,\u201d she said, but there was no fear in it. Only irritation. \u201cEthan, ignore her. She always does this when attention isn\u2019t on her.\u201dEthan threw his arms up. \u201cYou\u2019re not doing this on my birthday, Claire. Get up.\u201d He crouched down\u2014not to assist\u2014but to whisper sharply, \u201cStop embarrassing me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My husband, Ethan, spat the words as if he were reprimanding a misbehaving pet, not speaking to his wife. I was sprawled on my back in the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":194,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41368,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41366\/revisions\/41368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}