4. Chapter 4
Elowen
The drive home passes in silence. Julian keeps one hand on the wheel, the other reaching for mine twice before giving up. Good.
I stare out the window, watching the streetlights blur into streaks.
My reflection stares back, highlighting the weird button nose I never used to think about.
Now, I wonder how my husband views it. I feel the deduction instantly.
I am fifteen points behind Carmella, maybe more.
I study him like a stranger because that is exactly what he is.
We pay the babysitter, a college student whose name I should remember but can’t recall through the fog of betrayal. Julian pays her extra for the late hour. Always generous with money, my husband, but apparently less generous with his truths.
“Everything okay?” the girl asks, glancing between us.
“Fine,” we answer in unison, the response of a long-married couple. Another lie to add to the pile.
I follow Julian up the stairs to our bedroom. He loosens his tie. I’ve watched this ritual thousands of times, but tonight it hits differently.
Julian sits heavily on the edge of our bed. Meanwhile, I remain standing, arms crossed over my chest.
“So,” I begin, my voice strangely steady, having had time to settle my nerves on the drive home. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
It’s a rhetorical question. After eight years, he had plenty of time.
“Trey was drunk, Ellie. He exaggerates.”
“Was there a spreadsheet?”
His hesitation is answer enough. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, needing something to do with my hands that doesn’t involve screaming or breaking things.
“It wasn’t like that,” he says finally. “It was years ago. I was trying to make a rational decision.”
“About which woman to pick?” My voice rises slightly. “Like choosing between job candidates? Or ties?”
Julian removes his cufflinks and places them on the nightstand. Even in a crisis, he’s orderly. “That sounds cold when you put it that way.”
“Is there a warm way to put it? You made a pro-con list about my face. My body.”
He looks up, exasperation flickering across his features. “I chose you in the end, didn’t I?”
As a second choice. He had to convince himself to want me because it was too inconvenient to dismiss me.
“Because you texted the wrong person,” I say. “Our entire marriage, our children, exist because you made a logistics error you were too cowardly to correct.”
Julian stands. “You’re blowing this out of proportion. Yes, the coffee date was a mistake initially, but I saw something in you.”
“Organizational skills,” I snap. “Efficiency. A decent incubator for your children, despite my defective nose.”
He winces. “I never said defective.”
“No, you said piggy and weird. You said our kids would need plastic surgery. Our children have my nose, Julian. Do you look at Leo and still think he needs fixing? Do you see Meredith’s profile and wince?”
“Of course not!” He steps toward me. “I love our children exactly as they are.”
“But not me.”
Julian runs both hands through his hair, disheveling his perfect appearance. “Ellie, this is ridiculous. I’ve been a good husband. I’ve provided everything.”
“Everything except honesty.” I stop pacing and turn to face him fully. “Do you still talk to her?”
His eyes shift away. Another answer.
“Carmella is a business contact,” he says carefully. “We move in the same professional circles.” Because I work closely with him, I’m aware of this, but it’s not a good excuse.
Acid burns up my throat. “And the fifteen-point winner in your little competition.”
“It wasn’t like that.” His voice hardens. “Look, Trey shouldn’t have said anything, but you’re making this into something it wasn’t. I made a choice, Ellie. I chose you.”
“When exactly did you choose me, Julian?” I ask, my voice dropping to nearly a whisper.
“When you accidentally texted me? When I showed up, and you were too polite to send me away? When I became your secretary and made your life easier? When, exactly, in this story did you actively choose me over her?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he closes the short distance between us and reaches for my waist. It’s that familiar gesture from the bar, from a thousand disagreements settled with sex rather than resolution.
“Come on, babe,” he says, his voice dropping to that intimate register that usually makes me melt. “Let’s not fight about ancient history.”
I yank away from him.
“Ellie,” he says, and for the first time, uncertainty creeps into his voice.
I wrap my arms around myself, creating a barrier between us. “Don’t touch me.”
His confidence visibly falters. “You’re overreacting.”
“No,” I cut him off. “I’m finally reacting. I’ve been living someone else’s life. Now, I’m trying to be worth choosing.”
Julian watches me with growing alarm. This isn’t how our arguments go; this isn’t how I respond. His accommodating, efficient wife is going off-script.
“What are you saying?” he asks, and there’s actual fear in his voice now.
Not wanting to make any rash decisions, I glance around our bedroom. Our decor, the king-sized bed, the wedding photo on the dresser—it all feels fake now. It all feels like an ignorant woman who thought the man she married loved every piece of her.
“I’m saying,” I meet his eyes directly, “that I need to find out what I would have chosen if I’d had all the information.”
His face hardens. “Don’t be dramatic; think of the children.”
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I am, and they deserve better than this.”
I turn away from him, toward the closet we share, my mind suddenly, terrifyingly clear.
I pull the suitcase from the top shelf of our closet.
It’s dusty, but it’ll do. This is the first time I’m not using it for a family vacation.
Julian watches from the bedroom doorway, his face cycling through emotions.
“We’ll go away,” he says with panic in every word. “The Maldives, Paris, wherever you want. I’ll take a sabbatical. We can fix this. Just don’t walk out on the life we’ve built.”
He still doesn’t get it.
I don’t look at him as I lay the suitcase open on the bed. My steady hands pull open drawers to fold each item with the carefulness Julian once valued in his secretary, then his wife.
“You’re upset, I understand,” he says, “but this dramatic overreaction isn’t like you.”
That makes me pause. He’s right. It isn’t like me. Not the me he married, anyway. That woman was accommodating. She tucked her opinions behind her ear along with her perfectly straightened hair.
I move to the bathroom, gathering toiletries. I take everything except the expensive moisturizer Julian bought me last Christmas because “Carmella recommended it.” I leave that one on the counter.
Julian follows me around for once.
“Ellie.” His voice softens, becoming coaxing. “Come on. Let’s talk about this in the morning. You’re tired. We’ve both had too much to drink.”
I zip the toiletry bag shut with a decisive motion. “I’m perfectly sober. I’m now seeing everything clearly for the first time.”
“Fine. I can’t stop you. Walk out the door, Ellie,” he says, speaking in a quiet, conversational tone. “But you aren’t taking the children.”
I stop reaching for the next drawer, holding a stack of sweaters in my hands. He thinks he has the advantage because he knows I want to keep the children with me. But he doesn’t realize how impractical his statement is.
I handle every doctor’s appointment, school pickup, breakfast, and bedtime routine.
I am the one who manages their daily schedules.
Julian does not have the phone numbers for their babysitters or their teachers.
He cannot manage a morning routine without relying on his secretary.
Funny enough, she just so happens to be me.
He has no contacts outside of colleagues; even his parents live in a different country.
I turn around slowly and look directly at him. “You wouldn’t even know how to feed them breakfast, Julian.”
“I can order takeout.”
“At six in the morning? Who is going to watch them while you’re at work tomorrow?”
“Your mom?”
“Try again.”
Since I’m the one who maintains his schedule, I know he can’t handle the children.
He won’t be able to get them up, feed them breakfast, get them to and from school.
I’m not taking them with me to be cruel, but to protect both them and Julian.
He’ll have a breakdown having to handle them alone. It’s unfortunate, but true.
I move past him with my suitcase. The hallway stretches before me, family photos lining the walls: our wedding day, Leo’s birth, Meredith’s first steps. A history of moments I thought were precious to both of us.
I open Leo’s door first. The dinosaur nightlight casts prehistoric shadows across his sleeping face. At nine years old, he’s so thoughtful and sensitive.
I sit gently on the edge of his bed, stroking his hair. “Leo,” I whisper. “Wake up, sweetheart.”
He stirs, eyes blinking open in confusion. “Mom?” His voice is raspy with sleep. He spots Julian hovering in the doorway and sits up straighter. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I assure him, even though everything is. “We’re going on a trip.”
“Now?” He rubs his eyes anxiously, looking between Julian and me. He’s always been sensitive to tension, our Leo. Always trying to smooth things over, just like his mother.
“Yes, now,” I say, pulling his backpack from the hook by his desk. “Let’s pack some clothes and your favorite things. I need you to be my big helper tonight. Can you pick two favorite books and Bronty?” Bronty is his plush brontosaurus, threadbare from years of love.
Leo nods, uncertainty giving way to the simple task I’ve assigned him. He slides out of bed and retrieves his dinosaur, clutching it to his chest.
“This isn’t happening,” Julian says while I finish packing essentials.
A few moments later, Leo hands me his backpack, stuffed full of things he doesn’t want to forget. “Perfect,” I tell him. “Now let’s get your sister.”
Meredith’s room is across the hall, all pink and purple, despite my attempts at a more gender-neutral palette. “Girls like pink,” Julian had insisted when we decorated. Not “Meredith likes pink.”
Unlike her brother, Meredith is sitting up in bed when I open the door, as if she’s been expecting us. At seven, she has an uncanny awareness of household currents.
“Are we going somewhere?” she demands without preamble. There’s nothing but bold curiosity in her voice. My fearless girl.
“Yes, Mi-Mi,” I tell her, using her nickname. “A special trip.”
“With Daddy?” Her eyes find Julian in the doorway.
“Not this time,” I say, my voice steady though my heart pounds.
“Why not?” Direct as always, my daughter.
Julian steps forward. “Mommy needs a break, and Daddy is very busy.”
A half-truth, I’ll give him that.
Meredith looks between us, her little brow furrowed. She may be only seven, but she knows something significant is happening.
“I want my bunny,” she announces, climbing out of bed and retrieving her stuffed rabbit from the toy chest. Decision made. Crisis navigated. If only adult problems could be solved with such clarity.
I help her pick clothes while Julian watches from the doorway. His commanding presence has diminished with each passing minute. I feel his eyes on me as I zip Meredith’s small backpack.
“Ellie,” he says, and now there’s real fear in his voice. “Please. Don’t do this.”
For a moment, I almost falter. Eight years of being accommodating nearly overwhelms me. “Come on, kids,” I say. “Let’s go to the car.”
We move down the stairs as a unit. I am carrying both my suitcase and Meredith’s backpack while Leo trails behind with his own bag, Meredith chattering about which snacks we should bring. Julian follows, his perfect posture crumbling with each step.
“Where will you go?” he asks as we reach the front door. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“This is ridiculous,” he says again, but the words have lost their commanding edge. “But you promise you’ll be safe?”
I turn to face him. In the dim light of our front hallway, he looks smaller somehow. Less certain. The master of the universe is reduced to a man in a rumpled suit watching his life collapse.
“I’m not leaving,” I say. “I’m finding out who I would have been if you’d sent that text to the right person.”
Before I usher the children outside to the car, Julian tells them he loves them and will see them soon. After that, we go outside. The night air is cool against my skin. I buckle Meredith into her car seat while Leo climbs in beside her, Bronty clutched tight against his chest.
“We’ll get breakfast when we stop,” I promise them. “And you can pick whatever you want.”
“Even chocolate chip pancakes?” Leo asks, his anxiety momentarily overshadowed by this unexpected freedom.
“Even chocolate chip pancakes.”
I close the back door and slide into the driver’s seat. Through the rearview mirror, I see Julian standing in the open doorway of our perfect house. His mouth moves, but I can’t hear the words. I don’t need to do anything but start the engine. So I do.
The look on his face is one I’ve never seen before. The shock of a man who has always gotten exactly what he wanted, facing his first real denial. I back out of the driveway, watching him grow smaller.