20. Audrey
— ? —
Audrey
The text comes from an unknown number on a Thursday morning.
We need to talk. It’s Maryse.
I stare at the screen for a long moment, my coffee going cold in my hands. The name hits me like a physical blow - a sucker punch from a ghost I’d almost convinced myself wasn’t real.
Maryse. The woman. The texts. The heart emoji.
My first instinct is to delete the message and block the number. My second is to throw the phone across the room.
Instead, I type: I have nothing to say to you.
Her response comes immediately: You’ll want to hear this. Meet me at the diner on Route 1. One hour.
No.
It’s about your husband. Things you should know before you decide what to do next.
I think about the storm. About Rowan’s voice in the darkness, telling me about Boston, about the bag he packed nine years ago. He gave me that secret himself - volunteered it when he didn’t have to, when I never would have known.
Things you should know.
What could she possibly tell me that he hasn’t already confessed?
One hour, I type back. Don’t make me regret this.
The diner on Route 1 is nearly empty at 10 AM on a Thursday - just a handful of retirees nursing coffee and a trucker eating eggs at the counter. I spot her immediately: a woman in her early thirties, sitting alone in a corner booth, looking nothing like I expected.
I’d imagined someone glamorous. Someone sophisticated. Someone who would make me feel frumpy and ordinary by comparison.
Maryse is none of those things.
She’s pretty in a fragile way - thin, with nervous hands and circles under her eyes. She looks tired. She looks like someone who hasn’t been sleeping well.
Good. Let her lose sleep.
“Thank you for coming,” she says as I slide into the booth across from her.
“I didn’t come for your thanks.” I keep my voice flat, controlled. “You said you had information. So talk.”
“Do you want coffee? I could-”
“I want you to tell me whatever you came to tell me, and then I want to never see your face again. Is that clear?”
She flinches, but nods.
“I deserve that.”
“You deserve worse.”
She’s quiet for a moment, staring down at her hands. They’re trembling slightly. I feel a flicker of something that might be pity and crush it immediately.
“I’m not here to apologize,” she says finally. “I know apologies don’t mean anything. I just - there are things you should know. Things Rowan never told you.”
“Try me.”
She takes a breath, and something like triumph flickers in her eyes. “Did you know he almost left you once? Before Lily was born?”
I keep my face perfectly still.
“Nine years ago,” she continues, leaning forward. “He had a bag packed. Accepted a job in Boston. Was going to leave a note and just-”
“Disappear. I know.”
Her mouth falls open.
“He told me about Boston.” I watch the shock spread across her face with grim satisfaction. “During the storm, a few weeks ago. He told me everything - the job offer, the packed bag, why he stayed.”
“He... told you?”
“Himself. Without being asked. Without being forced.” I lean back in the booth. “So if that was your big reveal, you wasted both our time.”
Maryse’s composure cracks. She’s scrambling now, I can see it - her ammunition is gone, and she doesn’t know what to do with her hands.
“He didn’t tell me he’d-” She stops, regroups. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, he’s always been like this. Running. Hiding. One foot out the door.”
“And yet he told me about Boston when he didn’t have to. When I never would have known.” I study her face. “Can you say the same? About anything you’ve done?”
Her eyes flash with something ugly. “You think one confession makes him different? You think a few weeks of good behavior erases three months of choosing me over you?”
“I think it’s a start.”
“It’s not enough.” She’s regaining her footing now, finding new weapons. “Do you know what he told me about your marriage? Things he never told you. How you made him feel small. How he dreaded coming home some nights. How being with me was the first time he felt like himself in years.”
The words land like blows, even though I’ve already heard them - read them in his texts, turned them over in my own head at 2 AM.
“He talked about me? To you?”
“Constantly.” Her smile is thin and cruel. “I know things about your husband that you don’t. I know what makes him laugh, what scares him, what he looks like when he’s not performing for you.”
“You know what he looked like when he was running away from his problems. That’s not the same as knowing him.”
“Isn’t it?” She tilts her head. “He’ll do it again, you know. Maybe not with me. But someone. He’s not capable of staying. It’s not in his nature.”
“That’s not your call to make.”
“No. But the whole town gets to make it now.” She pulls her phone from her purse, sets it on the table between us. “Tomorrow morning, I’m posting every text he sent me. Every message. The whole three months, laid out for everyone in Miller’s Point to read.”
My blood goes cold.
“Why?”
“Because he deserves it. Because you deserve to know - and everyone else deserves to know - exactly who he is.” Her eyes are bright with something feverish. “He dropped me the second you found out. No explanation. No goodbye. Just blocked numbers and silence. Like I was nothing.”
“You were nothing.”
She flinches like I’ve slapped her.
“You were a symptom of something broken in my marriage,” I continue, my voice steady even as my hands shake under the table. “You weren’t special. You were just there.”
“That’s not-”
“He chose to come home. Every night for three months, he could have left me for you, and he didn’t.
He chose to stay in a marriage that was hard instead of running to something easy.
” I stand up, gathering my purse. “And now he’s choosing to be honest with me, to tell me his secrets instead of letting someone else weaponize them. ”
“The texts will still go up.” Her voice has gone shrill. “Everyone will still see what he wrote to me.”
“Then let them see.” I’m surprised by how steady I sound. “Let them read every word. And then let them watch us survive it anyway.”
I walk out of the diner without looking back.
But in the car, my hands shake so hard I can barely grip the steering wheel.
He told me about Boston. He chose to tell me.
But what if she’s right? What if he can’t stay?
What if the whole town sees those texts and I have to watch our humiliation play out in real time?
I think about the fragile hope I’ve been building - the hand-holding in the storm, the keepsake box, the do-over movie night with grape soda and Christmas lights.
What if tomorrow burns it all down?
I drive home with my heart pounding and doubt crawling back into all the spaces I’d thought were starting to heal.
He told me. He chose to tell me. That has to mean something.
But meaning something isn’t the same as being enough.
When I get home, Rowan’s in the kitchen, making lunch for Lily. He looks up when I enter, and his expression changes immediately.
“Audrey? What happened? What’s wrong?”
I set my purse on the counter and look at him - this man who packed a bag nine years ago and unpacked it for Lily. This man who chose to tell me his worst secret when he could have hidden it forever.
This man whose words to another woman are about to be broadcast to every person we know.
“Maryse called me,” I say. “I just met with her.”
His face goes pale. “What did she-”
“She tried to tell me about Boston. About the bag you packed.”
I watch him brace for impact. Watch him prepare for the explosion.
“I told her I already knew. That you’d told me yourself.”
The breath goes out of him like he’s been punched in reverse. Relief and confusion and something else - hope, maybe.
“You didn’t-” He stops, recalibrates. “What did she say?”
“That you’ll never change. That you’ll always have one foot out the door.” I meet his eyes. “And that tomorrow morning, she’s posting every text you sent her to the town Facebook page.”
The color drains from his face completely.
“Every message. The whole three months.” I feel the weight of it settling on my shoulders. “By noon tomorrow, every person in Miller’s Point is going to know exactly what happened.”
“Audrey, I’m so sorry-”
“I don’t want sorry right now.” My voice cracks. “I want to know if we can survive this. I want to know if what we’ve been building is strong enough to take a hit like that.”
“It is.” He crosses to me, stops just short of touching. “I’ll stand up in front of the whole town and take whatever they throw at me. I don’t care what anyone thinks except you and Lily.”
“That’s easy to say now.”
“Then let me prove it tomorrow. And the day after. And every day until you believe me.”
I want to believe him. I want to so badly it hurts.
But Maryse’s words are still echoing in my head: He’s not capable of staying. It’s not in his nature.
“I need to think,” I say. “I need time.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t push. He doesn’t reach for me. “Whatever you need.”
I walk to my room and close the door and sit on the bed with my head in my hands.
Tomorrow, the whole town knows.
Tomorrow, everything we’ve been quietly rebuilding goes public.
And I still don’t know if we’re strong enough to survive it.