Free Going in Circles by Pamela Ribon

movie about some other sad life.
    â€œWait,” she said. She went to him, putting her hands on his face, where they’d rested thousands of times before, the familiarity of his body sending an instant message through her own:
    This is your husband.
    She knows this man. She knows this face. This head. This hair, these warm green eyes. The scar under his chin she’s noticed every time she’s looked up at him. His smell, soapy and clean, like he just stepped out of a shower.
    This is your husband. What are you doing? What are you risking? Why?
    At this moment, memories flood Charlotte’s head. She sees him at their wedding, staring at her as she walked down the aisle like she was his answer, his face overcome with elation, the happiest she ever saw him, before or since.
    Somehow Charlotte can hold this image in her head while also feeling Matthew’s kiss, both on her mouth and on the bridge of her nose—memory kisses, tender moments of affection surrounding her, reminding her, embracing her as if begging her to stay.
    Another memory: a scribbled drawing he once made for her of a hopeful-looking little stick figure standing next to a childlike rendition of a house with an open door, six wavy lines forming a square topped by a triangle. Written underneath in a scrawl: “Will you live with me?”
    These memories take boxer’s swings at Charlotte’s heart, her organs tiny punching bags. Why does the brain do this to us when we leave a relationship? What sense does it make for it to spend seemingly half its time reminding us of all the things we will miss? Perhaps we are worried about the ramifications of stickingto our own decisions. When the mind stays semifocused on the possibility that things don’t have to end, there’s always another moment when everybody could stop all of this nonsense and pretend they were just kidding, that it was all a mistake. There’s still time to sit down, swap apologies, and then make out like crazy. You just have to grab it, but you choose not to.
    Or rather, more importantly, you both choose not to.
    In their last moment together as husband and wife in their home, both Matthew and Charlotte stood still, most likely so as not to shake each other in frustration. As much as she wanted him to produce a time machine from his pocket that could jettison them back at least a year, he must have been wishing she’d step out of her lunatic costume and go back to being the woman he had thought he’d married.
    But they couldn’t do either. So they did nothing. Once something that huge is in motion, perhaps nothing can make it stop.
    She kissed him, lightly, before he pulled back with a sniff, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Figure it out,” he said. And he left.
    Charlotte stood alone, staring at the space where Matthew had just stood, a place where not long ago he’d carried her over the threshold. And now she was about to cross that line again, in the other direction. All she could hear in her head was,
“You can’t take this back.”
    Dr. Hemphill has been scribbling as I’ve talked. He stops at this point to ask, “And do you want to take it back?”
    How can he not know I ask myself that every day? “It doesn’t matter,” I say to him. “I can’t.”
    â€œMaybe because you’ve crossed the threshold,” he says, and I detect a slight smirk.
    â€œYou’re proud of yourself for that one,” I say.
    â€œA little.” He grins.
    It was a good word for what was happening.
Threshold.
Matthew and I were both pushed to the edge, and now we’re challenging each other. A line has been firmly drawn between us, and it’s possible we’re both stubborn enough to remain separated for the rest of our lives.
    There’s a box of Kleenex on the table beside me. I grab it, pulling the box close to me, hugging it in my lap like it’s a pillow or a kitten. I’m