Three weeks.

I catch myself counting and hate it. My brain tracks the days like a kid before Christmas. I woke up this morning and knew, without checking, that it was twenty-one days until I could stop pretending.

Sarah's making pancakes. I can smell the butter from the bedroom. She uses too much, the way her mother taught her, and every time I eat one I think about how this is a thing that happens in normal families. Fathers who wake up to pancake smell on Saturdays. Who stumble downstairs and wrap their arms around their wives.

I do all of it. I'm doing it right now, arms around her waist, chin on her shoulder, stealing a bite that's too hot.

"Morning," she says.

"Morning."

I release her before the hug goes on too long. Timing is everything.

Emma comes thundering down the stairs, all seven years of her in pink pajamas. "Dad! Dad, watch this!"

She does a cartwheel that ends badly, legs kicking against the kitchen island. Tyler follows, slower, still half-asleep, dragging his dinosaur blanket behind him.

"Careful, Em." I catch her before she falls. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." She's already wiggling free, already moving to the next thing. "Mom, can I have chocolate chips in mine?"

"You can have three."

"Five."

"Four."

"Deal."

I sit at the table. Tyler climbs into my lap without asking, which is the only way he knows how to say good morning. I hold him there, feeling his weight, trying to feel it the way a father should.

The kitchen is warm. My wife is humming. My kids are fighting over chocolate chips. This is the life.

This is the life.

"You seem distracted." Sarah sets a plate in front of me. Pancakes shaped like nothing because she's given up on shapes.

"Just tired."

"The trip's coming up." She says it like an observation, not an accusation. "You always get weird before those trips."

I cut a bite. Chew. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know." She sits down across from me, her own plate untouched. "Quiet. Distant. Like you're already somewhere else."

"I'm right here."

"Physically."

Emma interrupts, thank god, demanding syrup, demanding attention, demanding everything the way kids demand. I pour. I wipe. I perform.

Later, when the kids are watching cartoons and Sarah's in the shower, I stand at the kitchen window and look at the backyard. The swing set I built when Emma was three. The fence I repainted last spring. The lawn I'll mow this afternoon because that's what Saturdays are for.

Twenty-one days.

My phone buzzes. I don't have to look to know. I look anyway.

Booked the cabin. Different place this year. You'll like it.

No name attached. The contact is saved as "Coach Mike" because that's what we agreed on, back when we agreed on rules. No names in texts. Nothing that couldn't be explained.

I type back: Looking forward to it.

Too eager. Delete.

Sounds good.

Too casual. Delete.

Send me the address.

Send.

I stare at the screen until the reply comes. Coordinates. A pin on a map. A cabin in Vermont that we'll pretend is about fishing.

We haven't actually fished in years.

I delete the conversation. I always delete the conversation. Then I clear my recent calls even though there aren't any, because paranoia is how you survive this. Paranoia and rules and the careful maintenance of two separate lives that can never touch.

Sarah comes downstairs, hair wet, wearing my old Ohio State sweatshirt. She looks like the woman I married. She looks like someone I should want.

"I was thinking," she says, curling up on the couch, "maybe we could do something tonight. Get a sitter. Remember what those are?"

"Sure." I sit next to her, the regulation distance. "What did you have in mind?"

"That new Italian place? Michelle said it's good."

"Sounds great."

She leans against me. I put my arm around her. The choreography of it. I know every step.

"I'm glad you have Ryan," she says. "For the trips, I mean. It's good that you two get along."

I manage not to flinch. "Yeah. He's a good guy."

"Mom always hoped you would. When I married you, she said..." She laughs, embarrassed. "She said the best marriages come with a brother for the husband. Someone he can go be a man with, you know? Get all the hunting-and-grunting out of his system."

"Your mom's very wise."

"She really isn't." Sarah tilts her head up. "But she was right about that. You come back from those trips happier. More... present."

I look at my wife. My wife who sees something she can't name, who calls it happier when what she means is real.

"I love you," I say, because that's the line.

"I love you too." She settles back against me. "Three more weeks. Then you can go grunt with my brother."

Three more weeks.

Twenty-one days.

504 hours until I can stop counting.