I got a job, I called out, joining him on the dirty pavement.
Where? he asked.
On the iceberg refuge, I said. 
He was silent.
I blurted: Will you wait for me?
Or maybe I said, Should I wait for you?

Either way, I hadn’t meant to ask it. I didn’t want to know the answer. All he said was, Imogen…

We had already agreed on an agreement. There would be a separation. A period of no contact, during which time we would meditate on the problem. The problem was not a lack of love. The balloon strained against its ropes. 

As if projected from our chests, a picture of the first future, the one we’d imagined together way back in the beginning, flashed in the air between us. It had been a beautiful future at one time, but now it seemed unfeasible, a dated artifact. The picture surged then flickered out. I wanted badly to curl up in the safety of my burrow, a body-sized hole dug into the dirt margin at the edge of the yard, where I had trained myself to nestle when possessed by doubtful, jealous, angry, self-depricating, alcoholic, melancholic, vindictive, spleeny, or fearful moods. But we had already filled in the burrow and smoothed the dirt over, in hopes of receiving our full security deposit, which, as it was, constituted the entirety of our life savings.

We kissed. We hugged. We let go. A tear ran down my husband’s face. He climbed into the basket and, as agreed, I cut the ropes. Cut ropes, I jotted on my list, then crossed it out.