Chapter 14
I looked up.
“Because of you?”
“No. She transferred to another firm.”
“Okay.”
He watched me.
“That’s all?”
“What else should I say?”
“I don’t know.”
Again, that almost hurt him.
At first, Daniel had imagined my indifference toward Melissa as strength.
Then he began to understand what it actually meant.
She had stopped mattering.
Because the competition he thought existed had ended.
I was no longer competing for my husband.
That made winning me back much harder.
In November, Lily turned eighteen.
We had a small dinner at home.
Mom came.
Nate and Sarah came with the boys.
Daniel grilled burgers in thirty-eight-degree weather because Lily requested them.
He had remembered her favorite cake.
Not because I reminded him.
Because he had written it down.
For the first time in years, I saw him doing the work of being connected.
I respected it.
That was the problem.
Respect returned before love did.
Everyone left by nine.
Lily went upstairs with gifts.
Daniel and I cleaned the kitchen.
He handed me a plate.
“Do you think we’re doing better?”
“Yes.”
Hope brightened his face.
I added, “That doesn’t automatically mean we’re staying married.”
The brightness faded.
“How long are you going to make me wait?”
There was the old Daniel.
Just a glimpse.
The man who believed effort should produce scheduled results.
I dried the plate.
“I’m not making you wait.”
“Claire, it’s been months.”
“Yes.”
“I ended the affair. I’m in therapy. We’re in therapy. I changed everything you said was wrong.”
“I never asked you to change everything.”
“What else can I do?”
“Nothing.”
He stared at me.
“That’s the point, Daniel. There may not be a thing you can do.”
“Then why am I doing all this?”
The question came out sharper than he intended.
I placed the towel down.
“You tell me.”
He went still.
I could see the exact moment he heard himself.
If he was doing the work only to receive me as payment, then it was still transactional.
He sat at the table.
“I’m sorry.”
I leaned against the counter.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be that person.”
“Then don’t be. Whether I stay or not.”
He nodded.
That conversation changed him more than anything else had.
Maybe because for the first time, Daniel understood that becoming a better husband could not be a strategy for keeping a wife.
It had to be a decision about who he wanted to be.