My husband went missing in 2005. Yesterday, I got a birthday card from him that said, «I never left — look in the basement.»…

I wanted to be angry, but something inside me whispered, don’t make it a big deal. He’s tired. He’s human.

So I told myself it was a one-time thing. But then came the solo walks. It started the next week.

He began taking long evening strolls without telling me. Said he needed to clear his head, get some steps in, or figure out lesson plans. He’d leave right after dinner and wouldn’t be back for over an hour.

The first few times, I didn’t think much of it. Everyone needs time alone. I enjoyed the quiet, honestly.

I’d light a candle, make a cup of tea, and read in the living room while the house sat still around me. But then it became a pattern. Every night, like clockwork.

He’d barely talk during dinner, then slip away. No hugs, no back soon. Just footsteps down the porch steps and a closed door.

I started to wonder where he really went. I even followed him once five minutes after he left. I got in my car and drove the neighborhood loop.

But I never saw him. No sign of him walking, no familiar figure passing under street lamps. When he came home that night, he looked flushed, sweaty.

Said he jogged a little. I wanted to ask more questions, but I didn’t. Instead, I said, maybe we could walk together tomorrow? He gave me a tight smile and said, sure.

But the next night, he left early, before I could even put the dishes away. That was when the doubt really started to form. Not enough to accuse, not enough to panic.

Just a whisper, a chill in the back of my mind. Something wasn’t right. But I told myself every marriage has quiet seasons.

I told myself I was being paranoid. I told myself that love is patient, love is kind, and all that. I chose silence.

And in doing so, I missed the early cracks forming right beneath my feet. It didn’t happen all at once. That’s the part that still gets me.

You don’t notice the small cuts until you look down and realize you’re bleeding. After the missed anniversary and the solo evening walks, something in Ellis began to dull. Or maybe it was something in me.

But the man who once used to sneak me grocery store candy bars just because had become muted. Like someone had turned down the volume on him, and he didn’t even notice. We used to talk, not just about Brenna or the weather, but really talk about books, dreams, our fears about growing older.

We used to sit in bed and laugh about how neither of us understood Twitter or how we kept meaning to fix that leaky faucet, but never did. But now, conversations were reduced to logistics. Did you pay the gas bill? There’s soup in the fridge.

I’ll be home late. Nothing more. No jokes.

No questions. No warmth. I remember one morning in particular.

I had gotten up early to make him breakfast. Real breakfast, not just toast and coffee. I made eggs the way he liked, over easy, with pepper and a slice of turkey bacon.

I even cut some melon and placed it all on one of the ceramic plates we’d bought during our anniversary trip to Asheville years ago. He came downstairs, looked at the plate, and said, thanks, before taking it to the table. No eye contact, no kiss on the cheek, just a flat, tired thanks.

He ate in silence, reading the paper. I sat across from him, waiting for something, a smile, a conversation, a moment. None came.

When he left for work, I stood in the doorway and watched him walk to the car. He didn’t wave, didn’t even glance back. I spent that whole day feeling like a stranger in my own home.

That summer, he stopped coming to bed at the same time as me. At first, he said he was grading papers late. Then it became, couldn’t sleep.

Then I’d just find him already asleep on the couch when I came downstairs in the morning. I tried to initiate things. I’d put on the old music we used to dance to in the kitchen.

I’d reach for his hand when we were walking down the driveway. I even suggested a weekend getaway, just the two of us. He smiled at that one, a strained, polite smile.

Things are just really hectic right now, he said. They were always hectic. Eventually, I stopped trying.

Not out of anger, I wasn’t angry, I was tired. Tired of reaching across a widening gap and never feeling his hand meet mine. The hardest part wasn’t the loneliness, it was the invisibility.

There’s a specific kind of pain in realizing that the person you share a bed with no longer sees you, that you’ve become part of the furniture, the background noise, a figure in the corner of their life instead of the center. At church one Sunday, a woman asked Ellis how we were doing. He answered, same as ever, without even looking at me.

I smiled and nodded. That had become my role, the smiling, nodding wife. Later that week, I got a haircut.

Nothing drastic, just enough to frame my face and feel fresh. I came home, put on a new blouse and made his favorite casserole for dinner. He didn’t notice, didn’t say a word, just served himself a plate, ate in silence and went to the basement.

That was another thing, the basement. He started spending more time down there, said he was organizing old boxes, but I never heard much moving around. Just the sound of the door closing, the light turning on and hours of silence.

Sometimes I’d go to the top of the stairs and listen. Once I even called down, need help? He didn’t answer. I stood there for what felt like forever before walking away, quietly ashamed for even asking…