And as they ate, moving through the courses of the supper as they chatted about nothing in particular, it occurred to Phillip that perhaps marriage wasn’t supposed to be so hard. With Marina he’d always felt like he was tiptoeing around the house, always fearful that she was going to descend into one of her bouts with melancholia, always disappointed when she seemed to withdraw from life, and indeed, almost disappear. But maybe marriage was supposed to be easier than that. Maybe it was supposed to be like this. Companionable. Comfortable.
