I grew up in Pennsylvania where July meant that after you spent the day in the lake you’d get out of the water and put on a sweatshirt, huddle by a bonfire, watch the stars stay still or the fireworks burst and go, shivering under a blanket.
I never got used to July in Tennessee. The air is hot, day and night, and heavy. So heavy. After twenty-some years there, summer would come and it would weigh me down. On my shoulders. In my lungs. I wondered sometimes if I’d drown.
It was a July night last year when the terror I’d felt for months over my husband’s odd behavior came to be unbearable. He’d looked increasingly like a stranger. His facial expressions were different. His body language. His energy. He hadn’t looked at me or listened to me or laughed with me in so long, and I could feel the weight of secrecy in our home the same way the air felt heavy in my lungs.
I couldn’t take a deep enough breath.
“Tell me the truth!” I wanted to scream.