8. Nora
— ? —
Nora
Snowed In - Day Two
One bathroom. One broken lock.
I realize this at 7 AM when I push open the door and walk straight into a wall of steam - and Dante, stepping out of the shower with a towel slung dangerously low on his hips.
He freezes. I freeze.
Water drips down his chest. His hair is slicked back, darker when it’s wet, and there’s still soap on his shoulder that he missed.
The towel is barely hanging on, and my eyes - traitors, both of them - drop to the cut of his hips, the water sliding low over his stomach, the way the terry cloth clings to-
Stop. Stop looking. You’re supposed to be leaving this man.
But my body hasn’t gotten the memo. Heat floods my face, then lower - pooling in my belly, between my thighs. My pulse hammers in my throat. I can feel myself flushing, and I can’t do a damn thing about it.
Five years. Five years, and he still makes my knees weak.
I look away. A beat too late.
“You can look, tesoro.” His voice is quiet. Knowing. “You used to do more than look.”
“Put a shirt on, Dante.”
Before I forget why I’m angry.
He doesn’t move. Just stands there, dripping, watching me with an expression I can’t read. The steam curls between us like something alive.
“The lock’s broken,” I say, forcing my voice level. “I didn’t know you were-”
“I know.”
“I’ll come back.”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“Yes.” I grip the doorframe. “I really do.”
I pull the door shut behind me. Lean against the wall. Press my palm flat against my chest like I can slow my heartbeat through sheer force of will.
Damn him.
Damn him and his shoulders and his stupid perfect jaw and the way water looks on his skin.
From inside the bathroom, I hear him laugh. Low. Quiet. Just once.
I walk away before I do something I’ll regret.
***
The blanket situation is getting dire.
The power’s still out. The furnace is still broken. And I spent most of last night shivering on the couch because I was too stubborn to ask Dante for more blankets.
So now I’m searching.
The hall closet: empty except for some old board games and a moth-eaten beach towel. The guest room closet: pillows, no blankets. The master bedroom - I’m not going in there. Absolutely not.
Which leaves the study.
Dante’s study. The room where he worked all those weekends we were supposed to be having a honeymoon, a vacation, a life. I push open the door and feel a familiar twist of bitterness.
The desk is massive. Mahogany, probably cost more than my car. I start opening drawers, looking for anything useful, and in the third drawer down I find-
Paper. Stacks of it. Handwritten pages, folded and unfolded, some crumpled, some smooth.
I pull one out.
Nora,
I don’t know how to reach you anymore. I sat across from you at dinner tonight and you looked at me like I was a stranger, and I couldn’t-
It stops there. Unfinished.
I pull out another.
I don’t know how to reach you anymore. Every time I try to say what’s in my head, the words come out wrong or don’t come out at all, and I can see you slipping away, and I-
Another.
I don’t know how to reach you anymore. I think I’m losing you. I think I’ve been losing you for months and I don’t know how to stop it. The company is-
My hands are shaking.
There are dozens of them. Dozens of unfinished letters, all starting the same way, all trailing off into nothing. Some are dated - March, April, June of last year. The cold year. The year I thought he didn’t notice. The year I thought I was invisible.
He wrote them here, in the one room that was only ever his.
He noticed.
He just never said anything.
***
“What are these?”
Dante looks up from the fire. His eyes drop to the papers in my hand, and his face does something complicated. Shock, then shame, then something rawer underneath.
“Those are-” He stands. “Where did you find those?”
“Your desk. I was looking for blankets.”
“Nora-”
“You wrote me letters.” My voice is shaking. I hate that it’s shaking. “All year. You sat in that room and wrote me letters about how you didn’t know how to reach me, and you never-” I thrust the papers toward him. “You never sent them. You never said anything. You just let me think-”
“I know.”
“You let me think I was crazy. That I was imagining the distance. Every time I tried to talk to you about it, you said we were fine-”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that!” I’m shouting now. I don’t care. “You don’t get to say I know like that fixes anything. You knew we were in trouble. You felt it. And instead of telling me, instead of reaching for me, you wrote these-” I shake the papers. “These useless goddamn letters that never went anywhere.”
“I was scared.” His voice cracks. “I didn’t know how to say it out loud. I didn’t know how to tell you that I was failing at everything - the company, the marriage, all of it. Every time I tried to start that conversation, I just - froze.”
“So you wrote instead.”
“I wrote what I couldn’t say.” He takes a step toward me.
“And then I’d read it back, and it would sound pathetic, or melodramatic, or like I was making excuses, and I’d think - I’ll do better tomorrow.
I’ll figure out how to say this properly.
I’ll fix the thing that’s broken before I have to admit it’s breaking. ”
“But you never did.”
“No.” His eyes are wet. “I never did. And by the time I realized I was out of tomorrows-”
“I was already gone.”
He nods. Wipes his face with the back of his hand.
“I wasn’t indifferent,” he says quietly.
“I need you to understand that. I know that’s what it looked like.
I know I was absent and distant and I stopped-” His voice breaks.
“I stopped saying tesoro. I stopped touching you. I stopped being your husband in every way that mattered. But I wasn’t indifferent, Nora. I was terrified.”
“You were a coward.” The words come out flat. Final. “That’s worse.”
He flinches like I’ve hit him.
“You’re right,” he whispers. “I was. I am.”
I look down at the letters in my hand. All those words he couldn’t say. All those nights I lay awake wondering if he still loved me, and he was in the next room writing letters about how he didn’t know how to reach me.
We could have fixed this. A year ago, six months ago - if he’d just said something. If he’d handed me one of these letters instead of hiding them in a drawer.
But he didn’t.
And now we’re here. Snowed in together, standing in the ruins of everything we used to be.
“I’m going to burn these,” I say.
“Nora-”
“I don’t want them. I don’t want to read about how scared you were while I was drowning.” I move toward the fireplace. “I’m going to burn them, and then I’m going to pack my mother’s books, and then I’m going to leave.”
“Please-”
I stop at the hearth. The letters are in my hand, and the fire is right there, and all I have to do is let go.
But I don’t.
I stand there, staring at the flames, and I can’t make myself do it.
Because somewhere in this stack of paper is proof that he loved me. Proof that I wasn’t crazy. Proof that the marriage I mourned was real, even when it felt like I was mourning alone.
I pull one letter from the middle. Fold it carefully. Slip it into my pocket.
The rest I set down on the mantel.
“I can’t burn them,” I say quietly. “I want to. But I can’t.”
Dante doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
I take the one letter - just the one - and walk toward my room.
I hate that I keep it.
I keep it anyway.