The first time I heard Ellen’s name, Mark said it the way you say something ordinary, like “the weather” or “the grocery store.”
He was telling me about his son, Alex, and then he said, “Ellen and I share custody,” and that was that.
It didn’t mean nothing to me.
Mark was a sailor — gone for months at a stretch, home for periods that somehow felt both too long and too short at the same time.
When he was away, I missed him in this deep, hollow way that made everything feel a little too dramatic. When he came back, the first thing he always wanted to do was see Alex. His whole face changed when he talked about that boy.
It softened in a way it never quite softened for me, and I noticed it immediately.
I noticed it every single time he did it.