His breakfast smells like ripe tomatoes and promises, pledged in youth and romance, a starter home, a child or two, a job with promotions and perks, naive happiness. We are older, each creak and crack in the house has a name, unlike our shadow children. He works so hard, by end of day face without color, dragging heavy-footed over the threshold, listlessness engraved into his bones. Desire distills into an uneasy companionship, his hand restive in mine, his shoulder sharp, I do not hear the word love, only silence and the foundation settling.