16. Hannah
HANNAH
I pulled into the driveway at half past four. The afternoon light fell across the Langford house in that clean way it did in October, no warmth in it. My hands had stopped shaking about halfway home, but my stomach had not settled. The bare place on my ring finger felt like a brand.
I cut the engine. Sat there. The house looked the same as it always had — white stone, black shutters, the kind of place you saw in magazines about people who had money and good taste.
I'd loved this house once. Walked through it the first time with Pierce and thought I could be happy here.
I'd imagined our kids running through the yard, birthday parties on the lawn, Christmases with a tree in the big front window. Now it just looked cold.
Pierce's car was in the garage, so he was home. I pressed my palm to my belly, where the baby had been kicking. God, I was so tired. Tired of running. Tired of waiting. Tired of not knowing. I wanted answers.
But I was afraid he wouldn't deny it.
I got out of the car and went inside.
Pierce was in the living room, standing by the window with his phone.
He turned when I came in. Something in his face changed when he saw me, a kind of relief that looked almost like pain.
He set the phone down on the side table and took a step toward me, then stopped.
Like he wasn't sure if I'd let him come closer.
"Hannah," he said.
I couldn't look at him yet. I set my bag on the entry table, my keys next to it. My hands felt clumsy. The baby shifted again, a rolling movement that made my whole belly tighten. I steadied myself against the table.
"Are you all right?" Pierce asked.
"I'm fine."
I walked through to the hallway and up the stairs.
The nursery door was open. I stopped in the doorway and stared at it.
Pale gray walls. White crib. A mobile of white and silver circles hung over it.
The rug was new, thick and soft-looking, cream with a pattern of leaves.
The curtains were new too, white linen that let the light in but kept the room private.
Only the rug and the curtains were new, and none of it was mine.
My throat went tight. I'd imagined this room a hundred times. A room that felt warm. A room that felt like ours.
This wasn't that room.
I felt Pierce come up behind me, close enough that I could feel the heat off him. He didn't touch me. He just stood there, waiting.
"When did the rug come?" My voice sounded flat, even to me.
"Tuesday," Pierce said. "Sienna had it sent over. I thought you knew."
I turned around. He was standing right there, too close. I could see the crease between his eyebrows, the one that meant he was trying to figure something out. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His tie was loose. He looked tired.
"I didn't know," I said.
He frowned, confused. "She said she ran it by you."
Of course she did. Of course Sienna had told him that, and of course he'd believed her, because why wouldn't he? Sienna was efficient. Sienna got things done. Sienna didn't make mountains out of anthills.
I walked back down the stairs toward the living room.
Pierce followed. I could hear his steps behind me, steady and unhurried like he thought this was fixable, like it was some small thing we could talk through and smooth over and forget about by tomorrow.
My heart began to race. I turned to face him, and he stopped a few feet away.
"Were you alone with her?" I asked.
He blinked. "What?"
"Sienna. In your office. Were you alone with her?"
The question hung there between us. Pierce's jaw tightened, just a little. He didn't answer right away, and that silence was an answer all by itself. My heart started pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
"Yes," he said finally.
The word hit me like whiplash. I knew it already. I'd known it since I'd stood in his office doorway and seen them, but hearing him say it was different. Worse. It made it real.
"How often?" I asked.
"Hannah—"
"How often?"
Pierce exhaled. "I don't know."
"Alone," I said.
"Yes. Alone." He said it like it was reasonable, like it was nothing. "Hannah, what is this about?"
I felt something crack open in my chest. "The day you missed the Thursday scan, did you leave the house when Sienna called?"
His face went still. He opened his mouth, closed it again. The pause ran a beat too long.
"Yes," he said.
One word, and so short. He didn't look away, but he didn't add anything, and it sounded exactly like guilt.
Pierce stepped closer. I could smell his cologne, something clean and expensive. "Hannah, you're upset. I get that. But let's slow down and look at this calmly."
He was steady and reasonable, and it didn't help. Everything Sienna had said kept playing back in my head, and the pieces fit together too well to ignore.
"And the appointment I asked you to come to?" I asked.
Pierce hesitated.
"Do you remember missing it?" I said it evenly. "Do you remember me asking you to be there and you not coming?"
His jaw clenched. "I remember."
I stared at him.
He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "I know I messed up. I can fix it."
"How?"
He gestured toward the hallway. "The nursery. If you don't like what Sienna did, I'll have her change it. She can redo the whole thing. You can pick everything. Just tell me what you want, and I'll make it happen."
The offer landed wrong, too practical, too much like he was solving a problem. Like the nursery was the issue.
I felt my stomach drop.
"I don't want her anywhere near the nursery," I said.
"Okay," Pierce said immediately. "Done. I'll tell her to redo the nursery."
"Will you?"
He looked at me like I'd slapped him. "Of course I will. Hannah, if it bothers you that much, I'll tell her to redo the nursery. It's not a big deal."
But he didn't sound like he meant it. He sounded like he was saying what he thought I needed to hear, and maybe tomorrow or next week he'd explain to me why it was impractical, why it didn't make sense to say anything to someone just because I was emotional and pregnant.
Why Sienna was too good at her job to be told no. Why I was overreacting.
I felt the fight go out of me all at once, like someone had pulled a plug and let it all drain away. I was so tired. Tired of explaining.
Pierce took a step toward me. Then another. He reached for my hand, and I saw his thumb brush over the bare place where the ring should have been. His skin was warm. His hand was bigger than mine, and it had always made me feel safe. Protected.
Now it just made me feel trapped.
"Come on," he said quietly. "Let's sit down. We'll talk this through. We'll figure it out."
I pulled my hand away.
He froze. Hurt flickered across his face, confusion, something else I couldn't name. We stood there, a few feet apart, and the space between us felt wider than it had ever been. Like we were on opposite sides of something I didn't know how to cross.
"Hannah," he said.
"I want a divorce."
The words came out steady. Quiet. Like they'd been sitting in my throat for weeks and had finally found their way out.
Pierce went pale. "You don't mean that."
"I do. I'll have a lawyer draw up the papers and send them to you."
"No." He shook his head. "You're upset. You're not thinking clearly. Let's just — let's take a minute and calm down, and then we can figure this out. We don't have to make any big decisions right now."
He was doing it again. Telling me what I felt, telling me I wasn't thinking clearly. Like I was a child having a tantrum instead of his wife.
"I've had fifteen days to think about it," I said. "I don't want this anymore."
"That's not fair."
"It's true."
He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time, like he couldn't quite believe this was happening. "We can work it out. I'll do better. I'll be there. I'll come to every appointment."
I grabbed my bag and my keys off the entry table and turned toward the door.
"Hannah, wait?—"
I didn't wait. I walked out into the October afternoon and got into my car.
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely get the key in the ignition.
I started the engine and backed out of the driveway without looking at the house, because if I looked I might go back in, and I couldn't do that.
Not now. Not when I'd finally said it out loud.
I made it two blocks before I had to pull over.
The tears came in a rush, ugly and loud, and I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel and let them come.
My whole body shook with it. Everything I'd wanted — the marriage, the home, the family, the life I'd built with him — all of it was falling apart, and I didn't know how to stop it.
I didn't even know if I wanted to stop it anymore.
The baby kicked again, a sharp little jab under my ribs. I put my hand on my belly, over the place where I could feel the movement. Real. Alive. Mine. This baby was mine, no matter what happened with Pierce. No matter what Sienna had done or said. No matter the appointment he'd missed.
I tried to picture what came next. Going back to Julia's. Finding a lawyer. Raising this baby alone. It all felt impossible. Like a life I didn't know how to live.
But staying felt worse.
God, what was I doing, sitting here?
I sat there until the sun started to sink, until the light turned gold and then orange and the street around me went quiet.
My chest ached. My throat burned. I felt hollowed out, like there was nothing left inside me but grief.
Grief for the marriage I'd thought I had.
Grief for the man I'd thought he was. Grief for the family we'd never be.
But I didn't go back.