Chapter 19
Vincent stared at me.
I continued quietly.
“I loved being a surgeon.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
His face went still.
That was the truth neither of us could escape.
Vincent hadn’t forgotten my career mattered.
He had simply become accustomed to its absence.
He remembered the inconvenience.
The missed dinners.
The security problems.
The nights I wasn’t available when he came home.
He forgot the woman who existed on the other side of those difficulties.
“I was proud of you,” he said.
“I remember.”
I looked at him.
“But somewhere along the way, your pride became something you talked about instead of something you supported.”
His eyes lowered.
“I didn’t see it.”
“I know.”
I took a breath.
“And I helped you not see it.”
He looked up.
I had thought about that part during the lonely nights in my apartment.
I had surrendered so many small things because fighting for them was exhausting.
I had stopped arguing.
Stopped asking.
Stopped insisting.
Eventually, Vincent mistook my silence for agreement.
“That doesn’t excuse what you did,” I said.
“But I need to understand why I let it happen.”
He looked at me for a long time.
Then he said, “The house is unbearable without you.”
My chest tightened.
There it was.
The sentence I had once dreamed of hearing.
The proof that he noticed my absence.
I looked down at my untouched dinner.
“I’m sorry you’re lonely.”
His expression changed.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
“Mara, I keep coming home and expecting you to be there.”
I closed my eyes.
He continued.
“I see your chair at breakfast.”
His voice grew rough.
“I go upstairs and the bedroom feels wrong.”
I swallowed.
“I didn’t realize how much of my life depended on you being there.”
I opened my eyes.
“That was never the problem, Vincent.”
He looked at me.
“The problem was that you depended on me being there without asking whether I was happy to be there.”
He absorbed the words slowly.
Then he asked, “Is there any chance we could start again?”
My heart twisted.
I had loved this man for ten years.
A part of me would probably always remember the way he held my hand when we were newly married.
The way he kissed my forehead before leaving for work.
The mornings when we drank coffee in silence and nothing between us felt broken.