My Wife Is Upstairs Serena: Hill

Serena Hill had always been a bit of a mystery to her neighbors. She lived alone in a spacious house on the outskirts of town, surrounded by tall trees that seemed to whisper secrets to each other in the wind. Her life was as private as the dense foliage that shielded her home from prying eyes.

I sit on the couch. The coffee cup beside me is cold. The novel in my lap hasn’t turned a page in an hour. This is the geography of our marriage now—vertical, stratified. She occupies the altitude of grief, and I occupy the basement of patience. There is a staircase between us. Seventeen steps. Each one a negotiation.

And that is the only prayer I have left.