Chapter 13
Because whether Julian loved me was no longer the most important question.
The important question was what he had done with that love.
Love without honesty had still humiliated me.
Love without loyalty had still wounded me.
Love without courage had still required me to make the decision he was afraid to make.
Maybe Julian loved me.
Maybe he loved Sophie.
Maybe he loved the man he used to be more than either of us.
None of those possibilities changed what happened.
On day twenty, Evelyn called.
“Julian accepted sixty percent.”
I sat upright.
“All of it?”
“All of it. No contest.”
“Why?”
“His attorney says Mr. Mercer wants the divorce concluded privately and according to your original terms.”
I should have felt victorious.
Instead I felt exhausted.
“When do I sign?”
“Final documents on day thirty.”
Nine days remained.
That night, I received a package.
No note.
Inside was the wooden box from my nightstand at Hawthorne.
I opened it.
The old photographs were untouched.
The cheap silver ring lay at the bottom.
But beneath it was something I had forgotten.
A folded piece of paper.
Julian’s handwriting.
It was a letter he had written the night before our wedding.
I remembered it before I opened it.
Claire,
If I ever become someone who forgets what you did for me, remind me that everything began with you believing when nobody else did.
I sat on the floor of Pine Hollow and cried.
Not because I wanted him back.
Because once, he had understood.
That was the tragedy.
Julian had not always been careless with my heart.
He had become careless slowly.
And I had become invisible slowly.
There had been no single day when our marriage broke.
Just thousands of small moments when success became more urgent than tenderness.
And then one woman in a Charleston restaurant became the place where all those fractures finally showed.
My phone rang.
Julian.
I answered.
“Did you get the box?”
“Yes.”
“I found the letter.”
“So did I.”
Silence.
Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
I closed my eyes.
“For Sophie?”
“For everything.”
I waited.
“I thought I was unhappy because of us,” he continued. “I think I was unhappy with who I’d become.”
“That doesn’t undo what you did.”
“I know.”
“You hurt Sophie too.”
“I know.”
“And you made me end our marriage because you didn’t have the courage to do it yourself.”