I close the door behind me and take a breath. The sound of chirping birds and the sounds of sparse suburban traffic are instantly silenced. For a moment, I think of the guest bed. It’s all made up already, and I need sleep.

I rub my eyes and pick up my phone, holding my finger down on the call pad to speed dial Neil.

He picks up on the second ring.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” There’s a short pause. It’s getting harder to talk around the spaces the fights leave.

“Did you get there safe?” he asks, finally.

“Yeah,” I look at my sister’s house, where Emma is having a snack with her aunt. “Yeah, we got here safe…” I search for more to say; a way to begin… but I can't think of any. Finally, I say, “Emma’s having some berries with my sister.”

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t have long, I have a class in ten,” He says.

“Okay, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to let you know we’d arrived.”

“Thanks. When will you be back?” Neil asks. My stomach flips nervously. It’s the opening I needed.

I pull my eyes away from the scenic view of Anya’s neighborhood showing through the windscreen and let my eyes fall into my lap. “Um,”

“I mean, there’s a dinner on Friday that we were meant to go to-”

“Yeah,” 

“And you didn’t mention anything this morning,”

“Yeah,” I massage the back of my neck with my other hand.

“Well, I need to know,”

“I know Neil,” I say. “I know.” I sigh. “I don’t uh... I don't really know when we'll be back.” I say finally.

I lay awake at night, Ari’s words ringing in my ears. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was the right thing to do. 

Just maybe not how he meant it.

There is a beat.

“Well, will you be in time for the dinner? It’s kinda important.”

“I don’t…”

“I mean you’re staying for a couple of days, right?”

The words hitch in my throat.

“A week?” he continues. “What? It’s not a difficult question, Lyss. And Nyla-”

“I know,” I cut in. I had to tell Nyla in the morning when I dropped her off at school. I told her it was just for a little while, because I didn’t know what else to say.

“Lyss,” Neil prompts.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” I repeat. I stop, take a breath, and calm my voice. “This isn’t working, Neil.”

The tone of my voice is different, and for the longest minute, we both sit there in silence. I'm the first to speak.

“I told Nyla we’d be gone for a little while and I already spoke to Elita. She said she could look after Nyla sometimes in the afternoons when you have classes and stuff,” I explain. “Nyla can visit and we can talk about things some more when her school year is over. I just didn’t want to make a big deal out of things and disrupt her school life when she was still kinda settling into it. And the school year’s almost over, so…”

All the words come rushing out at once. Strings of unfinished thoughts and half-sentences and middle-of-the-night ramblings, as if I’m trying to make up for both of us being silent for so long.

“Is this about the other night?” He asks, momentarily. “I apologized-”

“You didn’t.” I cut in.

“It was just a silly fight, Lyss,” He says, trying to rationalize.

“It’s not just about the other night, Neil,” I say, quietly.

His voice rises. “Then what is it about?”

“All of it, okay? This isn’t working.”

He's silent for a moment. “You told me you were going away to Anya’s for a little bit with Emma. Now you’re trying to tell me on the phone that what? You’re leaving? What about Nyla?”

“Don’t do that, okay?” I warn. “And I told you I talked to Elita and-”

“Oh, you talked to Elita?” he repeats. “The fucking cleaning lady?”

“I don’t want to fight, Neil,” I say, trying to cut through his words.

“I’m not trying to fight with you!” He shouts. “I’m trying to understand why you’re blowing up our lives like this-”

“What life?” I ask. “Our lives revolve around YOU, and your fucking job and your friends and everything that makes YOU happy. And then you come home and we fight about everything because I can’t seem to do anything right for you. And then I ask myself and ask myself what I’m doing wrong because I can’t seem to make you happy but the whole fucking time, I’m miserable!” my voice breaks on the last word and I stop, trying to swallow the tears that are coming but I can’t. I can’t. Not anymore. “I’m miserable,” I repeat.

“Come home,” He says, quietly. “Please. We’ll talk and it’ll be different. I promise. I know things haven’t been great but we’ll talk and everything will be different. I promise. Please.”

I can hear people talking in the background, and then it fades, and I can tell he’s walking away from the noise.

“You always promise, Neil. You promise and then nothing changes.”

“You can’t just leave, Lyss.”

“I’m going to call Nyla later okay?” I say. I pretend I’m talking to a babysitter, even though my voice is shaking, and Neil is my husband and this is scaring me.

“Alyssa, you can’t just leave,”

“And all the important numbers are on the fridge, but you have them already, I think,”

“Lyss,”

“I don’t know what else to do,” I say. And it’s the truth.

He starts to say my name again, but I cut the phone and switch it off.

And I turn back to Anya’s house and I stare and stare at it and hope that I’m making the right decision for us, because I meant it when I said I don’t know what else to do.