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 21

THEME:
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He looked at me.

"Because apparently that was the only language I understood."

I thought about the diamonds in the safe.

The dresses.

The mansion.

The way I used to wait for the sound of his car in the driveway.

"Some people don't notice what fills a home," I said, "until it's gone."

He nodded.

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

"I know that doesn't change anything."

"No."

"I wish it did."

"I know that too."

He looked toward the staircase.

"Do you ever think about coming back?"

I could have pretended not to understand.

I didn't.

"No."

His face tightened.

"Never?"

"Vincent."

"I know."

He exhaled.

"I shouldn't have asked."

I sat across from him.

"You want the truth?"

"Always, now."

That almost made me smile.

"I think about who I was there."

He listened.

"I was always waiting."

"For me."

"For you to come home. For you to notice something. For you to ask how I was. For the next apology. The next promise. The next moment that felt enough to make me forget the ones that didn't."

His eyes lowered.

"I don't miss her."

"The woman you were?"

"Yes."

That answer hurt him more than saying I didn't miss the mansion.

Because the woman I had been belonged partly to him.

Patient.

Hopeful.

Easy to reassure.

Always willing to accept tomorrow instead of today.

He stood.

"I should go."

I walked him to the door.

Rain had slowed to a mist.

He stepped onto the porch.

Then turned.

"Sophia got married."

I blinked.

"When?"

"Last month."

"Are you okay?"

The question came naturally, which surprised me.

He nodded.

"Actually, yes."

Then he smiled faintly.

"That's how I knew she wasn't the love of my life."

I waited.

"I didn't care that she married someone else."

He looked at me.

"I cared that you did."

I frowned.

"I'm not married."

"Not literally."

His gaze moved through the doorway toward my home.

"This life."

He struggled for the words.

"You married this life."

I understood.

My work.

My daughter.

My quiet kitchen.

My ordinary street.

Myself.

"Maybe I did."

He looked down at his hands.

"I used to think if I became better, you'd come back."

I didn't speak.

"Now I think becoming better is just something I should have done anyway."

That was when I knew Vincent had finally begun to change.

Not because he had become the man I wanted.

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