Wesley pulled out a kitchen chair and sat me down before he said another word, which frightened me more than anything. “This isn’t about strength,” he said. “And it isn’t absent-minded. Think about it. He tightens jars he doesn’t eat from. The artichokes he hates. Your face mask. Your daughter’s food coloring. He’s not closing jars. He’s making sure that in your own kitchen, in your own home, there’s a whole category of things you can’t do without him.” I started to shake my head, the way I always did, ready to tell myself I was being dramatic. Then Wesley asked the question that stopped me cold. “How many other things in your life work exactly like this?”

And suddenly I couldn’t breathe, because I knew the answer. The car he’d insisted on registering only in his name. The bank account he “managed” because I was “bad with numbers.” The way every friend I made slowly became inconvenient, every job I mentioned wanting became impractical, every small independence I reached for got quietly, reasonably, lovingly tightened just past where I could grip it. The jars weren’t the problem. The jars were the one piece small enough to see. Wesley watched the realization move across my face and said gently, “He’s been teaching you, over years, that you need him for everything. The jars are just where it finally got sloppy.”