4. Rowan
— ? —
Rowan
I can’t sleep.
The couch cushions are digging into my back, and the TV’s playing some late-night infomercial about blenders, and I should be upstairs in bed with my wife but instead I’m down here staring at the ceiling like a coward.
Something’s wrong with Audrey. I’m not stupid - I’ve noticed the way she turns away when I reach for her, the flatness in her voice when she says I’m fine, the way she flinches when my hand lands on her shoulder. She’s been slipping through my fingers for days now, and I don’t know how to hold on.
You know exactly why she’s slipping. You just don’t want to admit it.
I dig my phone out from between the cushions and stare at the screen. Three new messages from Maryse, waiting like little landmines.
M: That thing you said about the Henderson project made me laugh so hard I spit out my coffee.
M: You have this way of making everything feel lighter. Does anyone ever tell you that?
M: Goodnight, Rowan. Sweet dreams.
I should delete them. I should delete the whole thread - three months of conversations I never should have started, words I never should have written. But my thumb hovers over the screen and doesn’t move.
She makes me feel like I’m not failing.
That’s the thing, isn’t it? The ugly, shameful truth I can’t admit to anyone, least of all myself. Maryse looks at me like I’m enough. Like I’m not constantly disappointing everyone around me just by existing.
Audrey used to look at me like that.
I don’t know when she stopped.
I think about going upstairs. Crawling into bed beside her, pulling her close, asking her what’s wrong and actually listening to the answer.
But what if she tells me?
What if she’s finally figured out what I’ve known for years - that I’m not the man she thought she married? That I’m just playing a role I was never qualified for?
Husband. Father. Provider.
Three words that feel like weights around my neck.
I love Audrey. I love her so much it scares me sometimes, this bone-deep certainty that she’s the best thing that ever happened to me. But loving someone and being good enough for them are two different things, and somewhere along the way I started believing I’d never measure up.
She deserves better. She’s always deserved better.
And instead of telling her that, instead of being honest about my fears, I found someone who didn’t know my failures yet. Someone who looked at me with fresh eyes and saw possibility instead of disappointment.
“You’re not a disappointment,” Maryse said once, early on. “You’re just married to someone who doesn’t see you.”
But that’s not true. Is it?
I look at the ceiling again. Somewhere above me, Audrey is sleeping alone in our bed, wearing my Henley because she’s upset. She only wears that shirt when something’s bothering her.
What did I miss?
My phone buzzes.
M: Can’t sleep either?
I should put the phone down. I should go upstairs. I should be the husband I promised to be nine years ago, standing at the altar with trembling hands and a heart so full I thought it might burst.
Instead, I type: Same. Long day.
M: Want to talk about it?
And I do. That’s the terrible thing. I want to tell her about the look on Audrey’s face at dinner, the way she pulled away when I tried to touch her, the growing certainty that my marriage is falling apart and I don’t know how to stop it.
But I can’t tell Maryse about Audrey. That feels like a line I haven’t crossed yet - talking about my wife with the woman I’ve been texting behind her back. Like there’s some hierarchy of betrayal, and as long as I stay on this side of it, I’m not really cheating.
You’re already cheating. You’ve been cheating for three months. Just because you haven’t touched her doesn’t mean you haven’t broken something.
I put the phone down without answering.
I should delete the thread. Tomorrow. I’ll delete it tomorrow and tell Maryse we can’t talk anymore and be the man I’m supposed to be.
Tomorrow.
It’s the same thing I told myself yesterday. And the day before that. And every day since this started.
I must fall asleep eventually, because the next thing I know there’s pale light coming through the curtains and Audrey’s moving around in the kitchen above me.
I lie still for a moment, listening.
The clink of a mug. The gurgle of the coffee maker. The soft pad of her footsteps on the hardwood floor.
She’s wearing my Henley when I come upstairs. Gray fabric hanging off her shoulders, her dark hair still messy from sleep. She looks beautiful and tired and something else I can’t name.
“Morning,” I say.
She doesn’t turn around. “Coffee’s almost ready.”
“Aud-”
“Lily’s at Ruth’s until ten. I thought we could have a quiet morning.”
There’s something in her voice. A blade wrapped in velvet.
She knows.
The thought hits me like ice water. She knows. Somehow she knows, and she’s been waiting - watching me, testing me, giving me chances to come clean.
And I failed. Every single time, I failed.
“That sounds nice,” I say, because I’m a coward, because even now I can’t make myself say the words that need to be said. “I’ll make breakfast. Waffles?”
“Sure.”
She still won’t look at me.
I cross to the stove, pulling out the mixing bowl, and I think about all the mornings we’ve had in this kitchen.
Lily in her high chair, smashing banana into her hair.
Audrey dancing to the radio while I flipped eggs.
The two of us slow-dancing at midnight after too much wine, her head on my shoulder, my hands in her hair.
I had everything. I had everything, and I let it slip away because I was too scared to fight for it.
“Rowan.”
Her voice is strange. Flat. Final.
I turn around.
She’s holding my phone.
“Who’s M?”
The world stops.
I can feel my heart slamming against my ribs, can hear the blood rushing in my ears. She’s looking at me with those eyes - those dark eyes I fell in love with fifteen years ago - and I can see it now. The knowledge. The betrayal. The cold, quiet fury.
“Audrey-”
“Three months of messages.” Her voice is steady, but her hands are shaking. “Three months of ‘you’re the only one who sees me’ and ‘next time’ and-” She breaks off, swallows hard. “Who is she?”
Tell her the truth. For once in your miserable life, tell her the truth.
“Her name is Maryse.”
The word hangs in the air between us. A confession. A grenade.
“Maryse.” Audrey repeats it like she’s testing how it feels in her mouth. “And what exactly is Maryse to you?”
“She’s no one. She’s-” I stop. That’s a lie, and we both know it. “She works at the restaurant supply company. We met on the Henderson project.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I run a hand through my hair. My palms are sweating. “She’s someone I’ve been talking to. That’s all. Just talking.”
“Just talking.” Audrey laughs, and the sound is like glass breaking. “Just ‘I feel more myself with you than I have in years’? Just ‘next time’?”
“It wasn’t - I never-”
“Never what? Never touched her? Never kissed her? Is that supposed to make it better?”
“I didn’t!” The words come out louder than I intended. “I swear to God, Audrey, I never touched her. It was just-”
“Just what?”
Just the emotional intimacy I should have been giving you. Just the conversations I should have been having with my wife. Just three months of building something with someone else while you were right here, waiting for me to see you.
“I don’t know how it happened.” My voice cracks. “She just - she listened. She didn’t look at me like I was failing all the time.”
Audrey goes still. Completely, terribly still.
“Like you were failing?” Her voice is barely a whisper. “I have been drowning, Rowan. I have been holding this family together while you checked out, while you stopped touching me, while you stopped seeing me - and you’re telling me you felt like a failure?”
“You don’t understand-”
“Then explain it to me!”
She’s shouting now, her voice raw and broken, and I deserve every word. I deserve worse.
“I was right here.” She’s crying, tears streaming down her face, but her eyes are blazing. “I lit seventeen candles and put on lingerie and waited for you to see me, and you walked right past to talk to her. You didn’t even look.”
The candles.
Oh God. Last night. The wax on the dresser. The smoke I smelled but didn’t question.
“Audrey-”
“You were on the phone with her for forty-three minutes. I counted. I sat there in the dark and counted every minute while you laughed with her, while you talked to her like she mattered, like she was the person you wanted to come home to.”
I feel sick. Actually, physically sick.
“I didn’t know-”
“You didn’t look!” She throws the phone at me. It hits my chest, clatters to the floor. “You don’t look anymore, Rowan. You haven’t looked at me in months. You’ve been too busy looking at her.”
“That’s not-”
“What did she give you that I couldn’t?”
The question hangs in the air. Heavy. Impossible.
I should lie. I should say something that makes this better, something that starts to repair the damage I’ve done.
Instead, the truth comes out, quiet and devastating:
“For five minutes, I didn’t feel like a disappointment.”
Audrey’s face crumbles.
I watch it happen in slow motion - the anger collapsing into something worse, something I’ve never seen before. Hurt. Deep, raw, gutting hurt.
I did that. I put that look on her face.
“Get out.”
“Audrey, please-”
“Get out of this house.” Her voice is shaking now. “Get out of my sight. I can’t look at you right now.”
“We need to talk about this-”
“You had three months to talk to me!” She’s screaming, her whole body trembling. “You had three months, and you chose her. Every single time, you chose her. Now get out.”
I should fight. I should get on my knees and beg for forgiveness and refuse to leave until she understands how sorry I am.
But the look in her eyes stops me cold.
She hates me. My wife hates me, and I deserve it.
I grab my keys from the bowl by the door. My jacket from the hook. I walk out into the cold October morning with the sound of her sobbing following me like a ghost.
The last thing I see before the door closes is Audrey sinking to the kitchen floor, her face in her hands, wearing my Henley and surrounded by the wreckage of our marriage.
What have I done?