Chapter 10: The Conversation He Asked For
He called that evening.
I let it go to voicemail.
Then he called again and I picked up.
"I know you filed," he said.
His voice was flat.
"Yes."
"Patricia Hale doesn't do things quietly."
"No," I agreed.
"She doesn't."
A silence.
Then: "I'd like to see you.
Not to argue.
I just — I want to say some things in person."
I thought about it.
"My sister's house," I said.
"Not ours.
And not for long."
He arrived at Nora's at seven.
She let him in without warmth and stood in the kitchen doorway with her arms folded while I sat at the dining table.
He sat across from me.
He looked different than he had in the kitchen the week before.
The fear was still there, but the calculation was gone.
He just looked tired.
"I'm not going to ask you to stop the filing," he said.
"I know it's too late for that."
"It is."
"I want to tell you the truth.
The real version, not the one I had prepared." He looked at his hands.
"It started with one message.
She reached out after running into me at a work event.
I should have told you immediately.
I didn't.
And then — it was easier not to.
Every week it was easier not to.
Until it had been months and I didn't know how to go back."
"You moved sixty thousand dollars," I said.
"I know."
"You rented an apartment.
You had a plan.
That wasn't a mistake that accumulated.
That was a decision you made over and over."
"Yes," he said.
"It was."
Nora shifted in the doorway.
He glanced at her, then back at me.
"I don't expect forgiveness," he said.
"I'm not here for that.
I just didn't want the last thing between us to be lawyers."
"What did you want it to be?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"I wanted you to know that the person you married — he was real.
I wasn't performing it.
I loved you.
I got lost, and I made choices I can't undo, but I loved you.
I need you to know that."
The strange thing was, I did know it.
And it didn't make any of it better, but it made it true.
"I know," I said.
"I told you that already."
He nodded slowly.
He pressed his palms to the table and looked at them.
"Is Megan —" he started.
"I don't want to talk about Megan," I said.
"Okay."
"Is there anything else?" I asked.
He looked up at me one more time.
The person who had said his vows, who had laughed with me on the kitchen floor when we forgot the pasta was boiling, who had held my hand in the hospital waiting room when my father was sick.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I know that doesn't fix anything."
"No," I said.
"It doesn't."
He stood up.
He pushed the chair in carefully, the way he always had.
At the door he stopped.
"Take care of yourself," he said.
"I will," I said.
Nora walked him out.
I heard the front door open and close.
Then her footsteps back down the hall.
She came and sat down across from me in the chair he'd been using.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
I thought about it honestly.
"Like something is finally over," I said.
She reached across and squeezed my hand once.
"Good," she said.
Outside, a car started in the driveway and pulled away slowly.
May you like
I listened to it until I couldn't hear it anymore.
Then I reached over and picked up my coffee cup, and I finished it, and I set it down empty on the table.
