For nine years, my husband treated my birthday like an ordinary date on the calendar.

Then his birthday came around, and he expected breakfast in bed, presents, dinner reservations, and some kind of celebration involving practically everyone we knew.

That year, I gave him exactly what he had given me for almost a decade.

Nothing.

When he stared at me in disbelief, I repeated the words he had used on me countless times:

“Aren’t birthdays supposed to be for children?”

He called me cruel.

Then he insisted he had never actually forgotten my birthdays.

So I went to our bedroom, opened the bottom drawer of my dresser, and brought out the notebook I had been keeping for nine years.

By the time I finished reading from it, my husband had stopped arguing.

Every year, my birthday passed through our house almost unnoticed.

Desmond would wake up, take a shower, go to work, come home, drop his keys in the bowl by the door, and ask what I was making for dinner.

If my birthday landed on a Saturday or Sunday, there was a decent chance he’d spend several hours golfing before settling onto the couch with the television.

Eventually, I would remind him.

Sometimes after dinner.