23. Pierce
PIERCE
I sat at my desk and felt something close to peace.
The nursery was finished. Every shelf built by hand, every toy placed where Hannah's notes said it should go.
The walls were the color she'd chosen, a soft green that reminded me of spring.
The curtains were the fabric she'd wanted.
I'd torn out everything Sienna had done and rebuilt it from the planning papers Hannah left behind, working late into the night for the past three weeks until my hands ached and my back screamed at me to stop.
It was ready. The room was ready for our child.
Hannah didn't know. I hadn't told her. God, I wanted to tell her.
Wanted to show her the mobile I'd hung yesterday, the one with the stars and moons she'd picked.
Wanted to see her face when she walked in and realized I'd actually listened this time, that I'd followed every detail she'd written down.
But the divorce was moving forward, and I'd given her space.
That was what she needed, wasn't it? Time to see that I'd changed.
Time to understand that I'd put it all right.
I'd fired Sienna. I'd handed the work to Carter.
I'd rebuilt the nursery exactly the way Hannah wanted it. Surely that was enough.
Surely she'd see it eventually and understand.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. My chest felt lighter than it had in weeks. The knot that had lived under my ribs since the day Hannah left had loosened, just a little. I'd fixed it. I'd actually fixed it.
Carter knocked twice and came in without waiting. He'd been doing that since I handed him the work, walking into my office like he owned the place. I didn't mind. He carried his tablet under one arm and looked tired.
"Got a minute?" he asked.
"Always."
He set the tablet on my desk and turned it so I could see the screen. "I went down to Security and pulled this. Thought you should look at it before they archived the footage."
I glanced at the screen. The angle showed my office from above, the wide view from the camera mounted near the ceiling. The timestamp read eighty-one days ago, and I went cold. I knew that date. The day Hannah walked in on Sienna in my office.
"Why would I want to see this?"
Carter tapped the screen with one finger. "Just watch."
He started the playback. The office was quiet at first, just me at my desk with my sleeves rolled up and the tablet in my hand, the overhead lights on. Then Sienna came in. She said something, and I answered without looking up.
She crossed to the wall and turned the lights down until only the glow of the desk lamp was left. I didn't notice. I kept scrolling.
Jesus.
She came back with a bottle of red wine and two glasses and set them on the side table.
She uncorked the bottle, poured one glass full, and left the other one empty, waiting.
Then she stepped out of her heels and kicked them off beside the chair by the window and put her purse down on the seat.
She stood back and looked at it all, tilting her head like she was measuring it, and nodded to herself.
Then she walked to my desk and leaned against the edge, one hand braced on the wood, her body angled toward me like we were sharing a secret. She laughed at something I said. She touched my shoulder. I never looked up from the screen.
Her hand slid down my arm, slow and deliberate. I didn't pull away. She checked the door over her shoulder, checked her phone, and smiled.
I watched her wait. She didn't move. She just stayed there, posed, her eyes on the doorway like she was waiting for her cue.
The timestamp jumped forward. Two minutes. Then Hannah appeared in the doorway, and my throat went tight.
She stepped through the doorway and stopped just inside the office, a mug of tea in one hand, the other pressed to her stomach. I couldn't see her face from this angle, but I saw the way her shoulders pulled back.
The sound on the recording was thin, but I heard every word. "So the donor event is locked for the third week of October?" Sienna asked, her eyes sliding to the door. She didn't look startled. She looked satisfied. She kept her hand on my arm.
"Yeah," I said, still scrolling.
Hannah stood there while we talked. She didn't move. On the screen I said, "You do the work. I just show up," and never looked up.
Then Hannah turned and left, the tea still in her hand, her other hand still pressed to her stomach.
Sienna stayed exactly where she was until Hannah was gone. I never looked up.
The footage ended.
I sat there and stared at the black screen. My hand was flat on the desk, fingers spread, and I could feel the grain of the wood under my palm, every line of it pressing into my skin. My pulse hammered in my ears.
"She set it up," I said. My voice sounded flat. Dead.
"Yeah."
"Hannah walked in on a scene Sienna staged."
"That's what it looks like." Carter's tone was careful, like he was talking to someone standing on the edge of a roof.
The divorce was moving forward because of something Sienna built. A lie. A performance. Smoke and mirrors, and I'd fallen for it. Worse than that—I'd waved Hannah off when she tried to tell me what Sienna was really like, when she tried to warn me.
My chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped a band around my ribs and pulled it until I couldn't breathe.
I wanted to put my fist through the wall.
Wanted to find Sienna and make her answer for what she'd done.
But she was already gone, already fired, and it didn't matter anymore because the damage was done.
"You all right?" Carter asked.
"No."
He nodded slowly, like he'd expected that answer. Picked up the tablet and tucked it back under his arm. "I'll leave you with it."
"Thanks."
"For what it's worth," he said, turning back at the door, "I never liked her."
"I know."
"Did you ever ask Hannah what Sienna was like?"
The words went straight through me. I hadn't. Not once.
God.
Carter left and closed the door behind him. I sat in the chair and felt the weight of what I'd just seen settle in my gut like a stone, cold and heavy and impossible to ignore.
Hannah had tried to tell me. More than once.
She'd told me Sienna didn't treat her the way she should, that at the shower she'd acted like Hannah was in her way.
That Sienna made her feel like she didn't belong in her own life.
I'd told her Sienna's job was to make sure everything ran smoothly and it wasn't personal, and then I'd told Hannah she was making a mountain out of an anthill.
I'd answered her feeling with logic, like logic could solve the fact that my wife felt small in her own home.
God, I was an idiot.
I pushed back from the desk and stood up, pacing to the window. The city stretched out below me, glass and steel and money, the world I'd built my life in.
I remembered another time. Hannah in my office, the evening before, telling me what she'd overheard in the hallway at the Langford home. Sienna in the hallway with someone else, laughing. Hannah had said it to me word for word, her voice shaking. "I won't be the work wife for long."
I'd asked if she had proof Sienna meant something else. I'd told her Sienna said she'd seemed overwhelmed for weeks.
I'd dismissed it. Dismissed her. Told her she was overthinking it and left it at that.
And the nursery. Jesus Christ, the nursery.
The nursery Sienna designed, all of it expensive.
Hannah had raised it with me, carefully, like she was stepping on broken glass and trying not to cut herself.
She'd wanted to plan it herself. I'd told her, "We'll get it done, Hannah.
We have time." I'd told her, "Just send me the link for the crib and I'll look at it tomorrow. "
Then Sienna had done it, and Hannah had stood in the finished room and said it wasn't what she wanted.
I'd told her Sienna's version was easier.
Practical. Already done. I'd given her a solution instead of listening to the fact that she wanted to plan the room herself, that she needed to do this one thing for our child without someone else taking it over.
I'd handed my wife's nursery to the woman who was trying to take her place.
And I hadn't even seen it. Hadn't even questioned it. I'd thought I was being practical, efficient, making sure everything was handled. I'd thought I was taking care of things.
My throat burned. I grabbed my jacket off the back of the chair and left, taking the stairs instead of the elevator because I needed to move, needed to feel my legs work and my lungs burn and my heart pound until the tightness in my chest turned into something I could name.
Rage. At myself. At what I'd done. At what I'd failed to do.
The Langford home was empty when I got there.
It had been without her for sixty-six days, since the afternoon she walked out with her bag and didn't look back.
I'd gotten used to the silence, the way my footsteps echoed in the hallway, the way the house felt too big and too cold and too full of things that didn't matter.
I didn't like it, but I'd gotten used to it.
I walked upstairs, my hand trailing along the banister.
Stopped outside the nursery. The door was open, and the afternoon light came through the window and hit the rocking chair Hannah had wanted, the one I'd ordered from the link she'd written down and set at the star she'd drawn in the corner.
The walls were soft green, the shelves were full of books and toys arranged exactly the way her diagrams showed, and the mobile I'd hung yesterday turned slowly in the air from the vent, the stars and moons casting shadows on the floor.
It was perfect. It was exactly what she'd planned, down to the last detail.
And she didn't know. I hadn't told her. I hadn't called, hadn't sent a message, hadn't done anything except finish the room and sit in it sometimes at night, wondering if she'd ever see it.
Because what would I say? I'm sorry I let someone else take over the one thing you wanted to do yourself. I fixed it after you left. Please forgive me.
Too little, too late. Like trying to catch something after it had already fallen and shattered on the ground.
I turned away from the door and went downstairs.
Sat on the couch in the living room, elbows on my knees, staring at the floor.
The house felt huge around me. Cold. Empty in a way that had nothing to do with Hannah's absence and everything to do with the fact that I'd never really been here, even when she was.
Hannah's wedding ring was in my pocket. I'd been carrying it for weeks, as if it were proof that she'd chosen me once and might choose me again.
I'd thought about using it to ask her to come back.
Thought about showing up at Julia's door and putting the ring in her hand and telling her I'd fixed everything, that the nursery was done and Sienna was gone and the house was ready for her and the baby.
I didn't take it out of my pocket.
Because what would I fix? The office scene was staged, a setup designed to break us apart, and I'd let it work. The nursery was rebuilt, every detail exactly the way she wanted. The house was ready, spotless and silent and waiting.
But none of that answered the question she'd asked me.
I could still hear her voice. Standing at Julia's door eighty-one days ago, her arms crossed and her eyes shadowed with exhaustion, asking me if I knew why she left. Her voice had been quiet, almost gentle, like she was giving me one last chance to understand.
I'd told her she was stressed. That the pregnancy was hard on her, and the hormones, that she was overwhelmed and needed a break.
"We'll get someone in to help you." I'd been so sure, so absolutely certain I understood.
I'd thought a rest and some help in the house would be enough, and then Hannah would see reason and come home.
She'd looked at me like I'd missed the whole point. Like I'd failed a test I didn't even know I was taking.
And I had.
The office scene wasn't the reason. It was the last straw, maybe. The moment that broke her, the thing she couldn't unsee or explain away or make herself live with. But it wasn't the wound.
The wound ran deeper than that. Older than that.
The wound was every time I'd waved off what she said because I thought I knew better, because I thought feelings were something you could logic your way out of.
Every time she'd come to me with a problem and I'd handed her a solution instead of just sitting with her and listening, instead of hearing what she was really saying underneath the words.
She'd needed me to hear her, and I'd given her logic instead. Practicality. Reasons. I'd given her everything except the one thing she actually asked for.
I didn't listen.
The realization settled in my chest and squeezed until I couldn't breathe. I leaned forward, elbows digging into my knees, and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. My throat was tight, my jaw ached from clenching it, and my stomach felt like I'd swallowed broken glass.
The worst wound wasn't Sienna setting up that scene.
It wasn't the office or the nursery or the work I put ahead of her or the dinners I missed or the appointments I didn't go to.
It was the fact that my wife had tried to tell me she was struggling, that she didn't belong in her own life, and I hadn't heard her.
Not once. Not until she left.
I'd thought the marriage was fine. Thought she was fine.
Thought if I kept working and kept the money coming in and kept everything running smoothly, that would be enough.
I'd treated her like a problem to manage instead of a person to know, and I hadn't even realized I was doing it until she was already gone.
And the divorce was still moving forward.
I sat there in the empty house, the silence pressing in on me from all sides, and knew the answer to her question. I knew why she left. Not because of Sienna. Not because of one staged scene or one lie or one moment of cruelty.
She left because I didn't listen.