Chapter 14
I sent them to a nursing home.
Then jewelry.
I returned it.
Then a new SUV "for Lily's safety."
I told the dealership to pick it up.
Finally, Vincent stopped sending things.
One evening, he arrived for visitation holding nothing.
No flowers.
No gifts.
No apology disguised as luxury.
Just himself.
He sat on the rug with Lily asleep against his chest.
"Why didn't you ever tell me you hated the gifts?"
"I didn't hate them."
"Then why leave everything?"
I looked at him.
"Because I loved what I thought they meant."
His eyes lowered.
"And what did you think they meant?"
"That you saw me."
Silence.
I folded one of Lily's blankets.
"Eventually I realized they meant you knew what store to call."
He closed his eyes briefly.
That hurt him.
Still, he didn't argue.
When he left that night, he paused beside the door.
"I ended things with Sophia."
I kept folding.
"Okay."
His expression tightened.
"That's all?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"I thought you'd want to know."
"I spent years wanting to know."
I looked at him.
"I don't anymore."
And that was when Vincent finally began to understand that getting rid of Sophia would not bring his wife back.
Because the problem had never been only another woman.
The problem was the version of me that loved him enough to accept less.
And she was disappearing.
My husband was in Paris with the woman he had never stopped loving when I went into labor with our daughter.Chapter 1: PART 1: THE NIGHT HE WASN'T THERE
PART 4: A FATHER IS NOT A HUSBAND
By spring, Vincent knew how Lily liked to be held when she was tired.
That mattered.
It did not fix our marriage.
Those two truths existed together.
Our attorneys worked through custody quietly.
No courtroom spectacle.
No photographers.
No family war.
Vincent could have made the process ugly.
He didn't.
For the first time since I had known him, he seemed to understand that forcing me to stay would only prove why I needed to leave.
Frances called me one afternoon.
"He's agreed to your proposed schedule."
"All of it?"
"With a few reasonable changes."
I looked through the kitchen window.
Lily was asleep in a portable bassinet near the table.
"What about the house?"
"He doesn't care about the house."
"I told you I don't want the mansion."
"He knows."