Detachment doesn’t arrive like a decision.
It slips in gently, the way exhaustion does.
The way grief does when you’re tired of begging your heart to behave.
I stop waiting for Ethan to come home first.
I stop asking how his day was in a way that means tell me something real.
I stop rearranging myself around his moods.
Not out of spite. Not to punish him.
Just… survival.
At the shop, life is warm and loud and sweet in a way my marriage isn’t. My staff chatter over music, argue about fillings, steal pastries they pretend they didn’t take. Someone brings me coffee without asking. Someone else calls me Madam Solene like it’s a joke and a crown at the same time.
Here, I am not a placeholder.
Here, I am solid.
I catch myself smiling more. Laughing without checking my phone. Going ent
