Forty and in the Prime of Life

Lu Huaizhou and Lin Jiuyue got together on April 28. There were two days left until our twentieth wedding anniversary. There were forty days left until our son’s college entrance exam. There were 174 days left until my forty-fifth birthday. I stared at Lu Huaizhou’s location, which hadn’t moved for six hours. I didn’t cry or make a scene. I finished an entire pack of cigarettes. At daybreak, I told myself this man had only forty days left on his shelf life.