Recently, my husband and I stayed with family in my childhood home. I love my relatives, but they can be a lot — as Dirk well knows. He also knows a guaranteed tactic to snap me out of my malaise whenever I’m feeling down, which can happen during these visits.

One evening, everyone else had cleared out of the house for a few hours, giving me and Dirk some precious time alone. Usually, we save our power play for our place, but he was feeling frisky.

“We may not be at home, but we can still have some fun,” Dirk teased.

He walked around my old bedroom, which was still packed with items from my past. His eyes swept over every exposed surface. He was clearly casing the space. He paused when he reached the shelf that held my school awards and fingered the fringe at the ends of the... Read More