Colin was happy Stacy had finally taken a weekend for herself—until she returned from Nashville wearing long sleeves in unbearable heat. He tried to dismiss the uneasy pressure in his chest, but one careless moment exposed something that made him question everything.

My wife, Stacy, had not taken a girls’ trip in years.

I was the one who pushed her to go.

For months, she had moved through life like a phone stuck at two percent—somehow still functioning, but always seconds away from shutting down.

She taught third grade, managed most of her mother’s medical appointments, and still came home each evening trying to smile as though she were not completely drained.

So when several old high school friends invited her to Nashville for the weekend, I told her she had to accept.

She sat at the kitchen island wearing one of my old T-shirts, her hair pulled into a messy knot. “It feels selfish.”

“Selfish?” I asked. “Stacy, you haven’t had a REAL weekend away since our honeymoon.”

She offered me an exhausted smile. “That’s not true.”

“Name one.”

Her mouth opened, then closed again.

I pointed toward her phone. “EXACTLY. Go. Drink something with fruit in it. Wear the boots you never wear. Sing too loud. I’ll be fine.”

She looked back at the group chat, and I watched her expression soften.

That smile held a younger version of Stacy, the woman I remembered from the beginning of our relationship. Back then, she laughed with her entire body and spoke with animated hands.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Completely.”

That Friday, I drove her to the airport. She wore jeans, a white tank top, and a light denim jacket she removed before we reached departures because the heat already hung thick over the city.

“Text me when you land,” I said as I lifted her suitcase from the trunk.

“I will,” she promised.

She kissed me quickly but warmly, then hurried inside with her carry-on trailing behind her.

The house felt wrong without her that weekend.

Too still.

I watched baseball with the volume turned up too high, ordered food, and stretched diagonally across our bed like a newly single king. Even so, whenever my phone lit up, I smiled before checking it.

There was Stacy with two women I recognized from old yearbooks, Brooke and Tessa, along with another named April, who had moved away before Stacy and I met.

Stacy holding a pink drink in a plastic cup. Stacy in a cowboy hat, laughing with her eyes squeezed shut.

She looked genuinely happy.

That was all I needed.

The only strange thing was the weather.

The entire weekend had been hot, and the following week was expected to be worse. Every forecast resembled a hazard notice. By Sunday afternoon, when I left to collect her from the airport, the steering wheel was nearly too hot to grip.

I parked, walked inside, and waited near baggage claim holding a bottle of water. Travelers streamed through the terminal in shorts, tank tops, and sundresses. Everyone appeared overheated and annoyed.

Then Stacy came toward me wearing jeans and a long-sleeve Nashville shirt.

At first, I only smiled because she was home.

Then I noticed the shirt.

Dark blue, heavy cotton—the kind of souvenir someone bought after forgetting to pack a hoodie.

The sleeves covered almost all the way to her knuckles.

“Aren’t you feeling hot, honey?” I asked, taking her luggage.

She smiled, but rather than answering naturally, she tugged the sleeves even farther over her hands.

“A bit,” she said. “But the trip went so well, I’m not ready to part with the gift yet.”

I watched her a fraction too long.

Stacy could be sentimental, but never about tourist clothing. She normally washed anything new before wearing it because, as she always said, “I don’t know who touched this before me.”

Still, I warned myself not to overreact.

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