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

by

Chapter 16

THEME:
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I laughed softly.

"Thank you."

Teresa's eyes filled.

"I'm sorry you were alone."

That sentence reached a place in me Vincent's apologies had not.

Because she did not explain him.

She did not ask me to forgive.

She simply named what happened.

"I wasn't completely alone," I said. "Margaret was there."

"Thank God for Margaret."

We both smiled.

Then Teresa became serious.

"Emily, I love my son."

"I know."

"But loving him doesn't require me to pretend he didn't fail you."

For the first time since leaving the mansion, I felt something loosen around the Moretti name.

Maybe family did not have to mean loyalty without truth.

Maybe Lily could know them without being swallowed by them.

Vincent's visits became longer.

At first, I stayed in the house.

Later, he took Lily for walks.

Then afternoons.

He sent photographs without commentary.

Lily asleep against his chest.

Lily staring suspiciously at a stuffed giraffe.

Lily gripping his finger.

He never used the photographs to start conversations about us.

That mattered too.

One evening, when Lily was almost five months old, Vincent returned her twenty minutes early.

"She seemed tired."

I took her carrier.

"She didn't nap?"

"Twenty-seven minutes."

I smiled.

"That's not a nap. That's an insult."

He laughed.

Then the sound faded.

His eyes moved around my living room.

I had changed it.

Painted the walls.

Reupholstered an old chair.

Hung photographs.

There were toys in a basket.

A half-finished cup of tea on the table.

Life everywhere.

The mansion had always looked staged.

This looked lived in.

"You did all this?"

"Most of it."

"It looks good."

"Thank you."

He remained near the door.

"I drove past the mansion yesterday."

I waited.

"I almost didn't recognize it."

"What do you mean?"

"It feels empty."

I could have said something cruel.

I could have reminded him that I had spent years feeling exactly that way inside it.

Instead, I said, "Maybe because it is."

He looked at me.

"Margaret quit."

That surprised me.

"When?"

"Last month."

"Why?"

"She said she wanted to help her sister in Wisconsin."

I smiled.

"Good for her."

"She also said the house was too quiet."

I looked down at Lily.

Vincent continued.

"I used to think quiet meant peace."

His voice was softer now.

"Now I understand they're not the same thing."

I met his eyes.

There it was again.

The man I once wanted.

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