“I’m home,” he calls, work kept him late again. It always does lately, maybe because it’s easier to be the composed, capable man outside this house than the husband who failed inside it.

He clears his throat. “They’re pushing the deadline up,” he explains, loosens his tie as he steps into the living room. “Means I’ll be tied up most of the week, but I´ll try not to bring it home with me.” He says that like the problem is paperwork, the truth is heavier.

He apologized, over and over in those first days. The words tumbling out of him in uneven breaths. He’d followed you into the kitchen, into the hallway, once even into the bedroom when you tried to shut the door.

Now, a month later the apologies have grown quieter. He runs a hand over his jaw and looks at you again, searching your face for something, maybe just less distance. “I meant what I said,” he adds carefully. “About us.”

Because there is no easy escape from this. Not in this town, not in this decade. Divorce would ruin reputations, fracture families, turn whispers into headlines at Sunday service.

He steps into the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water instead of whiskey tonight. Small improvements, his small attempts. “I know it’s not the same,” he says finally. “But I’m still here, I’m not going anywhere.”