They sit at opposite ends of the kitchen table, the raw end of an argument stuck in their throats. Speechless. Depleted. Defeated. Thirty-three years of marriage and no place left to go. Outside the desert simmers in a broiling heat. There seems no escape. No way in. No way out. Trapped by their circumstances, they sit emmeshed in the hum of air conditioning and accumulated detritus of over three decades married. My god, how they feasted on each other in those early days! Starved now for affection. Compassion. Comprehension. They wait in their chrome and black-marble kitchen, time elongating. The jagged edges of their narrative have inflicted new and deeper wounds—the lifeblood of their relationship seeping away. Neither able or willing to stop the bleeding. Anymore. This latest confrontation the net result of so many others. It’s clear, they face a future entirely divorced from the one to which they pledged. How? How did they devolve from elation to desolation? How did they come to be languishing in their emotional desert where nothing thrived anymore? …