Let\u2019s not make a thing out of it this year, Lauren,\u201d he said in that patient tone he used whenever he wanted to pretend logic was on his side. \u201cMoney\u2019s tight, work is crazy, and honestly, we\u2019re too old for all that fuss.\u201dI stood at the kitchen counter cutting strawberries for our daughter\u2019s lunchbox and didn\u2019t respond right away. My name is Lauren Whitmore, and after twelve years married to Derek Whitmore, I had become very good at recognizing when a sentence wasn\u2019t really about what it said\u2014it was about control.Money was only \u201ctight\u201d when I wanted something. Work was only \u201ccrazy\u201d when his family expected my time. And apparently we were too old for fuss unless that fuss revolved around Derek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I smiled and said, \u201cThat\u2019s fine.\u201dHe looked relieved by how easily I accepted it.That should have embarrassed him. It didn\u2019t.Derek worked in commercial flooring sales. I was a senior accountant for a healthcare network in St.Louis. My paycheck covered the mortgage, our daughter Ava\u2019s private preschool tuition, and most of the credit card balances Derek preferred not to look at too closely. Derek liked to tell people he \u201cmanaged the household,\u201d which sounded far better than admitting I carried most of it.His mother, Gloria Whitmore, encouraged that fiction with devotion that might have been sweet if it weren\u2019t so corrosive. In Gloria\u2019s version of reality, Derek was the provider no matter whose money kept the lights on.hat evening, Derek came home from work, took a shower, and tossed his jacket over the dining room chair before stepping outside to take a call. His phone buzzed twice on the table, lighting up with his younger sister Melissa\u2019s name.I wasn\u2019t searching for evidence. I reached for the jacket because Ava had spilled juice nearby and I didn\u2019t want it stained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let\u2019s not make a thing out of it this year, Lauren,\u201d he said in that patient tone he used whenever he wanted to pretend logic was on… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":570,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45680","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=45680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45682,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45680\/revisions\/45682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}