Chapter 6
Gwen
The thermostat in Dr. Elowen’s office was always set to what Gwen would call “unseasonably cozy” for the month of September.
It made her blazer feel like a weighted blanket she hadn’t agreed to.
Maggie sat across from her, curled into the corner of the couch like she might disappear into the upholstery if she tried hard enough.
Dr. Elowen looked between them, pen balanced on the edge of her notebook. “So.”
“We’re going on the trip,” Gwen said. She sat up straighter, smoothing her slacks with a deliberate palm. “Together.”
Dr. Elowen gave a slow nod. “That’s a big decision.”
“We agreed,” Gwen said. “I was all in for taking the fall, but we decided together.” She added it like a badge of honor, hoping Maggie noticed.
She knew Maggie was upset. Gwen could read it in her clipped tone over the past few days, the carefully blank expression.
But she also couldn’t pretend this choice hadn’t lifted something off her.
For the first time in months, she felt a strange kind of relief — a flicker of freedom, maybe.
Not from responsibility or consequence, but from the limbo that had slowly calcified around them.
She wasn’t expecting a miracle. She wasn’t even expecting forgiveness.
But the idea of being in Maggie’s orbit again, even briefly, somewhere outside the weight of their shared house and history — that felt like something she hadn’t let herself want before now.
Maggie did notice. Gwen could tell from the way her lips pressed together, her expression flickering between impressed and bracing.
“Have you talked about how you’ll handle this shared lie… this, uh, shared story in front of your friends?” Dr. Elowen asked, crossing and uncrossing her legs.
Gwen’s eyebrows rose and Maggie caught her eye, her matching surprised expression telling Gwen they were on the same page about Dr. Elowen being so straightforward.
“Let me put it this way. How will you handle accommodations?” Dr. Elowen added. “I think it’s best if you plan for what you’re about to encounter to reduce anxiety and conflict in the moment.”
Maggie shrugged. “They booked a suite at some fancy hotel. I’m not sure what the exacts are. I just sent over our share of the cost and let someone else handle the details.”
“A suite? I thought we’d all have our own rooms,” Gwen said, a nervous flutter in her stomach.
Maggie shrugged. “I think every couple has separate rooms within the suite, but I haven’t asked the specifics or researched the floor plan.”
“Do not tempt me with floor plan research,” Gwen joked.
Maggie actually laughed. A short one, but real. “You’d probably ask the hotel concierge for a fire exit map and then reorganize the furniture for optimal flow.”
“I do care about safety and aesthetics,” Gwen insisted.
Maggie held up her hands in a gesture of appeasement. “I never thought otherwise.”
Dr. Elowen smiled gently, setting her pen down. “So this really is something you’re doing together. Is it a reset? A trial run? An experiment?”
Gwen looked at Maggie, but she wasn’t sure either of them had the answer.
Dr. Elowen glanced toward Maggie. “Why am I feeling a negative energy coming from your side of the couch?”
Maggie shrugged. “I’m having a lot of conflicted feelings.”
Dr. Elowen raised her eyebrows. “Want to share any of them?”
Maggie’s shoulders lifted again.
Dr. Elowen never gave up that easily. “Has this decision affected any other major decisions about your separation?”
“No,” Maggie said, like it was easy for her to admit.
Gwen flinched.
Dr. Elowen glanced between the two of them. “It seems to me like Gwen is stepping up and being there for you when you need her to be.”
Ah, this recurring theme. Gwen had Maggie’s caustic words of their very first session six months ago memorized, like they’d burned the inside of Gwen’s brain upon hearing them.
“You weren’t there. Not when my mom died. Not when I needed you. You buried yourself in work and asked me what I needed like I was going to hand you a list. I didn’t want a list, Gwen. I wanted you.”
Those words had haunted her, mostly because they’d been true. And she’d spent almost every day since in a tangle of trying to judge whether Maggie wanted her to step up and be there now, or wanted her to stay away, to let her deal with her suffocating grief alone.
“Let me ask you this, Maggie. How are you feeling about her joining? About the choice to not tell your friends?” Dr. Elowen added, yanking Gwen back to the present.
Maggie clenched her jaw. “I…” She trailed off, taking a deep breath through her nose.
“I initially felt like Gwen was punishing me for delaying telling my friends, and now I’m caught in this big lie, and my friend group is not exactly…
fantastic when it comes to honesty, so I’m just feeling…
Well, I’m feeling frustrated, to be honest.”
Dr. Elowen nodded, then glanced toward Gwen. “How does it make you feel to know she’s frustrated about this?”
Before Gwen could answer, Maggie began again. “On the other hand, I’m grateful to Gwen for rolling with this absolutely ridiculous plan. My friends are happy and engaged, and I don’t want to be the one divorced sad lady drunkenly slurring that love is a lie the whole weekend.”
The very specific mental image was not difficult for Gwen to conjure: Danica and Pete cozied up together, Izzy and Kiera comfortably holding hands, and Maggie, all by herself. She grimaced.
Maggie looked toward the ceiling. “So really I’m feeling conflicted, is what it comes down to. Gwen saved me from an awkward and uncomfortable situation by, in turn, creating a new awkward and uncomfortable situation. Except this time, only we’re uncomfortable, not everyone else, you know?”
A crease formed between Dr. Elowen’s eyebrows, and she seemed nervous. That made Gwen feel nervous, too, like watching a surgeon pause mid-incision to check the manual.
Gwen turned toward Maggie. “I wasn’t trying to pressure you into telling them.”
Maggie glanced her way, the weight of her bright blue eyes shining wholly on Gwen in a way that felt both familiar and surprising.
For the first time in what felt like ages, Gwen felt like they were standing side by side instead of across a chasm.
She didn’t know what that meant yet. Some silent accord passed between them — an unspoken agreement that maybe they could do this.
Maybe not forever. Maybe not even well. But together, for now.
“I’m going to respect Maggie’s boundaries, and it’s only a weekend,” Gwen said. “As for everything else after… I don’t know.”
There was a pause. The hum of the AC kicked in overhead. Dr. Elowen looked thoughtful. “It’s okay not to have the whole story written yet. But going on this trip might offer you both some clarity about what’s next.”
Gwen wasn’t sure if she wanted clarity or just a few days where nothing needed deciding. Still, she’d made the choice to go, and for now, that was enough.
As they rose, Dr. Elowen glanced toward the door. “Maggie, can I speak to you alone?”
Maggie glanced nervously toward Gwen, but then nodded. “Of course.”
Gwen slipped out the door and back into the easy routine of giving Maggie her space.
When they returned home from therapy, the kids were in bed and her mom was sitting on the couch.
Maggie gave her a short wave and murmured acknowledgment and thanks — she hadn’t seen Maggie hug her mom since her own mom had passed.
She wanted to ask Maggie what Dr. Elowen had wanted to talk to her about in private but was torn about wanting to let Maggie have her privacy.
Maggie didn’t seem like she wanted to share, anyway, as she hurried up the stairs and into the primary bedroom they once shared.
Gwen flopped down onto the couch beside her mom. “Thanks for watching the kiddos this evening. And this weekend. And for everything,” Gwen said.
“You know I’m always happy to hang out with my grandbabies. Lord knows Logan will never give me any,” her mom said with an eye roll. Her graying curls were clipped back, and she had a mug of chamomile tea in one hand, the kind of serene air Gwen had always associated with her. “You okay, honey?”
Gwen smiled weakly, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I’m going on a bachelorette trip with my almost-ex-wife where we have to pretend everything is fine. Define okay.”
Her mom leaned forward to set her tea down with a clink. “Are you hoping to rekindle something? Or are you just going for the group games and cucumber water?”
Gwen hesitated. “Did you talk to Logan? Because he was so Team Rekindle, I was surprised.”
Her mom’s smile softened. “He might have mentioned something.”
Gwen bit her lip, considering. “I don’t know. Honestly, I’m hoping something — anything — will shake us loose. We’ve been… stalled. This in-between space is starting to feel permanent.”
“That sounds challenging,” her mom affirmed.
“Challenging like trying to breathe through plastic.” Gwen let out a short laugh. “Sure, let’s throw me into a weekend full of spa treatments and couple-y friends. Maybe the awkwardness will kill me before the ennui does.”
Her mom studied her face for a moment. “You used to lean into challenge. Take risks. Even the hard ones. You chose a field that’s ninety percent rejection and ten percent ego. You rode a bike everywhere, for god’s sake.”
“Yeah, when I was twenty-four and immortal,” Gwen muttered.
“Maybe,” her mom said. “But you were brave. I think you still are. This trip might not fix anything. But if it gives you a better sense of what’s left, then maybe it’s worth it.”
Gwen sighed. Her chest still felt tight, but she nodded. “I just want to stop feeling like we’re waiting for something that’s never going to happen,” she admitted.
“Then maybe stop waiting,” her mom said as though it were obvious. “Take a risk. Get back on the bike. Maybe with a helmet and a reflective vest.”
Gwen blinked, not sure whether to cry or laugh.
Her mom leaned toward her, pressing a kiss to Gwen’s forehead. “You’re doing okay. Better than you think.”
Gwen’s chest squeezed with affection, and she hugged her mom. “Do you want the guest bed?” she asked. They’d be leaving early enough in the morning that her mom would be a great help with getting the kids off to school and Maggie and Gwen into an Uber to the airport roughly around the same time.
“No, I hate that bed. I’ll sleep here on the couch,” her mom said with a knowing smile.
The night outside thrummed with cicadas, their steady chorus folding into the syrupy warmth of an early Texas fall.
A faint breeze carried the scent of cut grass and something faintly sweet, like memory trying to sneak in.
Inside, the house was still, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
She stood there in that quiet, feeling the pause between heartbeats, suspended in a moment that could tip either way.