“Then I need you to answer one question, and I need it to be the truth, even if it’s ugly.”
I leaned forward.
“Why? Not the mall. Not the hotel. Why did a man who said he’d give me everything decide to slip out the back of his own marriage?”
Three.
Two.
He didn’t answer until the room behind us erupted in cheers and the first fireworks cracked above the rooftops, painting the window gold and red.
Then, in that flickering light, my husband began to cry.
“In April,” he said, “they gave the Director of Finance job to Kevin Marsh. He’s thirty-four. I’ve been there nine years. I told you it was fine, that they were restructuring, and you believed me, and I let you.”
He wiped his face with the heel of his hand.
“I felt like a failure, Emily. I felt invisible. And you were so capable, so steady, you handled everything, and I couldn’t stand for you to see me falter. Then Vanessa, she looked at me like I was still someone who had won something.”
Chapter 10
I sat with that while the sky kept breaking into color.
“I’m sorry you were hurting,” I said. “I mean that. And I’m sorry that I was so busy being efficient that I didn’t notice how long you’d been quiet. I think that’s a real thing, and I’ll carry my part of it.”
He looked up.
Startled.
Hopeful.
“But hear me,” I said. “Missing something is not the same as being told. You had a wife who would have sat on the floor beside you at midnight and gone through your résumé line by line. You had a wife who would have said, So they picked Kevin. Then we’ll find where you’re wanted. Instead, you hid the wrong things from the wrong person.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because the truth is, marriages go through hard seasons. Ours did, and I won’t pretend it didn’t. But when a person is hurting, they knock on a door, Daniel. You went out the window.”
He had no answer.
He sat with shaking shoulders as the last fireworks faded.
“The money goes back,” I said. “By the time the bank opens on the second. Not to punish you. Because it’s ours.”
“It’ll be back. I swear.”
“Don’t swear. Just do it.”
I stood and pushed in my chair.
