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ASHER Something’s not right. I’m not sure what or why, but I’m certain of the red flags when my wife wraps her arm around me, her breathing erratic and her body tense. Her fingers absentmindedly stroke my chest, but she’s not falling asleep. Or talking. She’s just caught in a trance of her own making. A phase where I couldn’t find her even if I tried. This brings back horrible memories from when she used to give me the cold shoulder, distance herself from me and leave me battling violent tendencies where all I wanted was to punch anything that moved in her vicinity. But we’re over that phase. We’ve been over it for more than twenty-six years. After we officially got together, there were times when Reina was upset with me about small details and chose to use her irritating habit of creating distance between us. We talked about that in the first few months, and I taught her to never do that again. I told her how much it infuriated me when she didn’t consider me part of her life when she’