His Minimalism Threw Away My Daughter's Heart

Later, Julia got married, and Peter and I slowly drifted together.

With a tangle of feelings, I tapped the screenshot open.

"Baby learned to say Daddy."

I swiped down, and there was a video.

On the screen was the kind of cozy decorating that stung my eyes, a pretty rug.

All the things I'd thought he threw away.

Sitting there, plain as day, in someone else's home.

The camera jerked, then fixed on a little boy and Peter.

Peter was holding that half-my-height teddy bear, coaxing the boy to call him Daddy.

Kayla's call came in right behind it.

I picked up and said nothing.

On her end she was loaded for bear: "Sheila, does your husband have a twin, or a long-lost brother?"

"...Neither."

"So you saw what I sent you?" She talked fast, like a machine gun. "I just heard—Julia's back from overseas, with a kid, about Coco's age..."

"I know," I cut in. "Let me look a little more."

Kayla was strangled with frustration. "He's already done all this! What more is there to look at! I told you back then I didn't want you two together..."

I listened to Kayla scold on and on, and opened the photo again.

Peter was good-looking.

I'd thought so in college, and I still thought so now.

A man with good grades, disciplined and exacting, paired with a decent face.

He could steal a sincere heart away easily enough.

I pressed the phone dark.

Beside me, Coco was still asleep.

I tucked her blanket in.

The next day I took Coco to the toy store.

"Which one does Coco like?"

Coco looked anxious. "I don't want one. Daddy will throw it away."

She was so small, and the first thing she thought of when she saw something she wanted was losing it.

"He won't anymore. From now on Mommy will buy them for you, and no one is allowed to throw them away."

Coco looked at me, then at the toys, and reached up to take a palm-sized little bear off the shelf.

"I want this one." She hugged the bear to her chest like she was holding some treasure. "It's small. Daddy won't see it."

Back home, Peter's dress shoes sat in the entryway.

He was home, and he hadn't said a word to me.

I thought about it, then kicked the pair of shoes out the door.

Peter was right about one thing.

Throw away the useless things, and you'll find your whole life opens up.

The door thudded.

Peter came out of the bedroom rubbing his eyes. "It's first thing in the morning. What are you doing?"

"Decluttering, for you," I said, turning and going inside. "Didn't you say too much stuff is just dead weight?"

Peter froze for two seconds and glanced at the entryway. His dress shoes used to sit neatly beside the shoe cabinet; now one lay upside down in the middle of the hallway and the other leaned crooked against the wall.

He frowned, went over, and picked them up. "Sheila, what's gotten into you?"

"Nothing," I said, scooping Coco up. "Isn't this what you said—it's not about having a lot, just enough to use? One pair of slippers is plenty for you, right? The dress shoes just sit by the door collecting dust anyway."

He stared at me for a few seconds, like it was the first time he'd noticed my tongue could be this quick.

In the end he didn't answer. He picked up the shoes, brushed off the dust, put them on, and left again.

After the door closed, Coco asked me in a small voice, "Is Daddy mad?"

"No," I said, kissing her forehead. "Daddy just went to work."

Who cared whether he was mad.

Over the next few days, Peter came home later and later.

I couldn't be bothered. Better if he didn't come home at all.

This home had never been one that fell apart without him.