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We brought a puzzle to the cabin,
rented on a Friday-front holiday.
Our tween was bored before we passed the first exit.
We needed the escape—
a break from where we'd been and where we were
(or thought we were, then).

I bit my lip the whole drive,
sucked in my stomach
hoping you'd eye me sideways.
I was fine-tuning my profile
in case it factored into whatever equation
you’d rationed for the day—
it's hard to admit, but I was game.

There was a lot at stake.

It was spacious,
more than we expected.
The pictures online didn’t do it justice;
we spent most of our time 
in the basement 
working that puzzle,
watching television,
gambling on our dart games.

You and I ended up with sore elbows
trying to outcompete the other—
neither of us offering
an out, both making excuses 
for missing the target. Both hurt,
and hurting.

Our kid drifted through those days mostly unnoticed,
a bored satellite pinging off our orbit.
We let him circle, banking
on pattern recognition to keep him safe,
while we were busy proving things
that had nothing to do with him.

You woke me in a panic
on the day before the last morning.
I thought it was over—
this was the moment
you had chosen to break it to me.

You were sweating—
breathing heavy like I haven't seen you
since we met in your thirties,
like I didn't 
already know her name,
have her socials.

Something’s happened, you said.
Can you come with me?

I was thrilled in a way I still believe
a righteous executioner might feel
hauling someone—shadowed, unnamed—
to the gallows.
Where to? I asked.

You headed to the bathroom.
Not the worst place for goodbye sex,
but not my first choice either.

What is this? you asked,
pointing near your middle...

Swear to god—
I thought I was going to jail for a minute.
So help me, if this conversation was leading
to a Planned Parenthood antibiotics situation,
some sh*t was going to go down.

But that’s not what happened.
Instead, you pointed, with big eyes
and open mouth, at your belly,
close to an irregular mole
that had grown larger at the edges
since the last time I saw it.

But even that wasn’t what you meant.

You were index-fingering a flat piece of brown
you’d squished before waking me.

I pinched it off your belly,
freed it from the curly gray hairs,
and wiped it on the sink counter.

Half a leg smeared into the porcelain
was the tell.
It’s a tick, I said.

Just stay covered and vigilant.
You’ll be fine.

You teared up and thanked me,
I called you an idiot.

Later that day, you chewed the bulb of a daisy
on a nature walk,
kept insisting the patch of green
were ramps,
despite the signs.

You spat out dirt and chunks
of fibrous husk
the whole way back to the cabin,
still calling it garlic—
and the three of us laughed
and laughed and laughed.
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