"...giving in...had ruined their lives. With this understanding came acceptance. [She] allowed [him] his silence. They began to play chess again--ordinary chess. They made love every now and then. He was never abusive to her, never inattentive. The three of them spent a lot of time together, probably more than most families did. He just didn't speak. It was never unpleasant--just very, very quiet. In short, they were not unhappy. But that, she knew, was not the same thing as being happy."
[from Housewrights by Art Corriveau]
I haven't read that book in years. Amazing how you can read a paragraph, and then go back and read it again, and then again, and it comes to you: that's exactly how it was for me. For us. That's just what it felt like, the way that it broke, and why it couldn't be put back together. Why we didn't want it back together.
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