Chapter 19
I looked toward the window.
“He's having a difficult time accepting the consequences of his decisions.”
Rachel gave a humorless laugh.
“That's one way to put it.”
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, “I kept thinking about what you told me at the hotel.”
“What part?”
“About loving the person you thought he was.”
I waited.
“He told me all kinds of things about your marriage. How cold you'd become. How you didn't care about him anymore. How he'd spent years trying to make you happy.”
My stomach tightened.
“I believed him,” she admitted. “Because it made me feel better about what we were doing.”
There it was.
The truth beneath the excuses.
Rachel didn't know the full story.
But she had known enough to understand she was participating in something that could hurt another woman.
She had chosen the version that allowed her to keep going.
“I can't change what happened,” she said.
“No.”
“But I can tell you I'm sorry.”
I looked down at my hands.
“I appreciate you saying that.”
“Do you forgive me?”
I thought for a moment.
“Not yet.”
Her breathing changed.
I continued gently.
“Forgiveness isn't something I want to promise just because a conversation is uncomfortable.”
She was quiet.
Then she said, “That's fair.”
We ended the call soon afterward.
I never became friends with Rachel.
I didn't invite her into my life.
I didn't decide that our shared disappointment in Daniel made us allies.
But I stopped thinking about her every day.
And eventually, that felt like a kind of progress.
Michael remained a steady presence.
We had breakfast the morning after the hotel encounter.
Then lunch the following week.
Then a long walk through a botanical garden where he listened patiently while I explained why I wanted to start growing dahlias.
He told me about his work.
I told him about a photography class I'd finally enrolled in.
Sometimes we talked about our children.
Sometimes about ridiculous things from our childhood.
Sometimes about nothing important at all.
One afternoon, as we sat on a bench beside a pond, Michael asked, “Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you'd made different choices?”
I looked at the water.
“Of course.”
“Do you wish you hadn't married Daniel?”
I thought about Sophie and Adam.
About Christmas mornings.
Family vacations.
Birthday cakes.
Long drives.
Quiet evenings when our marriage had still been good.