January 2. Money returned. D. apologized. Sorry is not the same as change.
That afternoon, Margaret called.
Daniel had driven to their house and sat in the garage with Robert for almost two hours.
She didn’t know everything they said.
But Robert told her Daniel kept repeating:
I don’t know who I’ve been.
And Robert, never a man of many words, had answered:
“Then find out. But do it somewhere that isn’t in front of her.”
Chapter 11
I thought about that sentence for a long time.
Then I put on my heaviest coat and drove to the lakefront, because some things can only be considered beside a very large body of water.
Lake Michigan in January is its own country.
The shoreline had frozen into rough white ridges.
Beyond them, pewter water moved slowly beneath a low sky.
I stood until my ears hurt and asked myself Dana’s question.
The one with no comfortable answer.
Do I want the marriage back, or the man I thought I married?
The truth came without drama.
Real truths often do.
I had spent eleven years building a life around a promise.
Part of me still stood on that fire escape holding a coffee mug of champagne, waiting for that man to return.
But he wasn’t coming back.
Because he had never left.
He was the same man who studied all night.
And the same man who lied to me in a boutique hotel.
People aren’t fake.
They’re simply capable of being two things at once.
I could love the first one and still refuse to build my future on the second.
I was still there, half-frozen and strangely calm, when my phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.
Emily, this is Vanessa Reed. I understand if you never reply. I have something that belongs to you, and I’d like to return it in person. A public place, five minutes, no excuses. Please.
