After My Husband Drugged Me

Nathan started humming in the shower.

I heard it through the bathroom door most mornings now, low and off-key, the same eight notes over and over. I didn't know the song. I didn't try to place it. I just heard it the way you hear a neighbor's television through a wall, present but not yours to think about.

He was drinking more, too. I noticed the level in the bottle on top of the fridge dropping faster than it used to, noticed the way his eyes had gone glassy and red-rimmed some mornings, like he hadn't slept, or hadn't slept well. He'd sit across from me at breakfast with his coffee going cold in front of him, just watching me eat toast like I was doing something remarkable.

"You okay?" I asked him once, buttering a second slice.

"Fine," he said, too fast. "You have jam on your—" He gestured vaguely at his own mouth.

I wiped it away. He kept watching me like I might disappear if he blinked.

I didn't understand the weight in his face. I didn't understand why he looked at me some mornings like I was a door closing very slowly, and he was standing on the wrong side of it. It wasn't unpleasant, exactly, being looked at that way. It was just confusing, the way it's confusing when a stranger cries in front of you on the subway. You want to help. You don't know how. You don't know them well enough to ask.

*

The knock came on a Wednesday afternoon, sharp and impatient, three raps in quick succession.

I opened the door to a woman in a camel coat that probably cost more than my first car. Sharp cheekbones. A face I recognized, vaguely, from somewhere—a photo, maybe, though I couldn't place the context. She looked like she'd rehearsed her own expression in a mirror.

"I'm sorry—do we have an appointment?" I asked.

Her mouth twitched. "You don't know who I am."

"Should I?" I asked, not unkindly. I really wanted to know. It felt like a pop quiz I hadn't studied for.

"I'm Paloma." She said it like the name should detonate something in me. When my face stayed pleasant and blank, something flickered behind her eyes—confusion, then a kind of panic she tried to smooth over with her chin lifted higher. "Paloma Salazar. Nathan's—" She stopped herself. Recalibrated. "I work with your husband."

"Oh, of course. Would you like to come in? Is this about the grant paperwork? He mentioned something about signatures."

"I'm not here about paperwork." Her voice sharpened, the practiced calm cracking at the edges. "I'm here because this has gone on long enough. I know this is hard to hear, but you need to let him go. Step aside. Gracefully, if you can manage it. He's chosen. We both know that. You clinging to a marriage that's already dead isn't dignified, Sloane, it's sad."

I considered her. I waited for something to rise in me—anger, hurt, the urge to defend territory I apparently owned. Nothing rose. It was like she was describing a war I hadn't been told I was fighting.

"I think you might have the wrong apartment," I said gently. "Or maybe the wrong day. I really don't know what you're talking about."

Her jaw dropped slightly. She recovered fast, chin tilting up, eyes narrowing like I was mocking her. "Don't do that. Don't play the wounded innocent. I've seen the way you liked my photo, like it was nothing to you. I know you're pretending not to care so you look strong, but everyone can see through it—"

"I really do have to get back to something," I said, and I meant it kindly, the way you'd interrupt a telemarketer who'd caught you at dinner. I stepped to the side and held the door open wider, an unmistakable gesture. "It was nice meeting you."

"You can't just—" Her voice cracked, high and thin, all her rehearsed lines collapsing out of order. "I drove forty minutes for this."

"I'm sorry to hear that." I was, genuinely, in the mild way you're sorry for any stranger's bad day. "Traffic's terrible this time of year."

She stood there a moment longer, coat cinched tight, mouth working like she was trying to find the thread of the speech she'd practiced in her car. Then she turned, heels sharp against the marble hallway, and left without another word. I closed the door softly behind her. No slam. No satisfaction in it. Just a door closing, the way doors do.

I walked back to the dining table where my tea had gone lukewarm and sat down. I opened my laptop.

The search bar blinked at me, patient. I typed: *divorce attorneys Manhattan family law.*

I didn't know, exactly, why I was doing it. There was no anger behind the decision, no wound driving my fingers across the keys. It felt less like grief and more like cleaning out a closet you'd been meaning to get to for months—an overdue task, practical, faintly satisfying once you finally started.

My hands did not shake. I scrolled through reviews, jotted two names on a notepad in handwriting so steady it surprised even me, and finished my tea before it went completely cold.