Chapter 10
Patrick
“I don’t think you’re here because of the anonymous message.”
Dr. Elena Foster said it calmly, almost conversationally. I’d been sitting in her office for less than fifteen minutes. Already I felt as though she’d seen straight through me.
The room was quiet. Soft gray walls. Two armchairs angled toward each other. A bookshelf lined with novels and psychology texts. Nothing about it felt clinical, which somehow made it harder to hide.
I looked down at the mug of coffee warming my hands.
“I thought I was.”
She waited. She didn’t rush to fill the silence. After a few seconds, I continued.
“I keep replaying everything.”
“The message?”
“My wife leaving.” The words still caught in my throat. “Naomi.”
I hadn’t spoken her name aloud in days. Not because I didn’t think about her. Because I thought about her constantly.
“I can’t stop wondering why I believed a stranger.”
Dr. Foster nodded.
“So you’ve been asking yourself why you believed the message.”
“Yes.”
“And what answers have you found?”
I let out a humorless laugh.
“None that make me look very good.”
“Try me.”
I rubbed my thumb against the side of the coffee mug.
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“That after eight years of trying to have a baby,” my voice faltered, “that maybe it had finally happened, but it wasn’t mine.”
She nodded once.
“So fear was present.”
“Very.”
“Is fear the same thing as evidence?”
“No.” I answered too quickly. She noticed.
“I think you already know that.”
“I do.”
She leaned back slightly.
“So let’s leave the anonymous message alone for a moment.”
I frowned.
“It feels important.”
“I’m sure it does.” She smiled gently. “But I’d like to ask about something else.”
I waited.
“What kind of woman is Naomi?”
The question caught me off guard. I blinked.
“What do you mean?”
“If I met her tomorrow and asked you to describe her, what would you say?”
I didn’t have to think.
“Kind.” The word came immediately. “Honest.” Another. “Loyal.” I smiled despite myself. “She remembers everyone’s birthday.”
Dr. Foster smiled.
“Go on.”
“She makes extra food whenever someone visits because she’s terrified people will leave hungry.” I could picture it perfectly. “If she says she’ll be somewhere at six, she’s there at five fifty.”
“What else?”
“She,” I laughed softly, “she always returns shopping carts, even if the cart return is on the other side of the parking lot.”
“And?”
“She cries at animal rescue commercials.” I shook my head. “She apologizes to furniture when she walks into it.” The memory made my chest ache. “She believes people deserve second chances.”
Dr. Foster let the silence settle.
“You answered that very easily.”
I looked down at my hands.
“Because that’s who she is.”
“How long has she been that person?”
“Our entire marriage.”
“And before that?”
“Probably her whole life.”
She nodded thoughtfully. Then she asked the question that changed everything.
“Why was one anonymous text more convincing than eight years of your wife’s character?”
The room became impossibly still. I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out. I searched for an answer.
Any answer. The photograph. The timing. The pregnancy.
Dustin. Fear. None of it fit. None of it actually answered her question.
Because she wasn’t asking why I’d been frightened.
She was asking why my fear had become more believable than Naomi.
Minutes passed before I finally spoke.
“I don’t know.” It came out barely above a whisper. “I honestly don’t know.”
Dr. Foster didn’t rescue me. She simply nodded.
“That’s a difficult answer.”
“It feels like a terrible one.”
“It’s an honest one.”
I stared at the floor.
“I keep wanting to blame the message.”
“What would happen if there had never been a message?”
“I would’ve trusted my wife.”
“Maybe.” Her voice remained gentle. “But that’s not what happened.” She folded her hands in her lap. “The message didn’t create your values, Patrick.” I looked up. “It exposed them.”
The words landed hard.
“No.”
“They’re difficult to hear.”
“No.” I shook my head again. “That can’t be right.”
“Why not?”
“Because I trusted Naomi.”
“Until?”
My throat tightened.
“Until I was scared.”
She nodded.
“So your trust had a condition.”
I felt sick.
“If fear became strong enough—”
She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. I already knew. I’d spent eight years believing trust was something I’d given Naomi. Now I saw the truth. I’d given it to her only as long as nothing challenged it. The moment fear arrived, I’d taken it back.
Tears burned behind my eyes.
“I never wanted to be that husband.”
“I believe you.”
Can I ask you something unrelated?” Dr. Foster said, setting her notebook aside for a moment. “You mentioned your company a few sessions ago. I don’t think we’ve talked about what that actually looks like for you.”
I shifted in the chair.
“It’s a lot of pressure, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s not quite what I meant.” She waited.
“I run a company my grandfather started. It’s worth a little over four billion dollars now.” I said it flatly, the way I’d learned to say it, like reading a number off a form. “I don’t usually lead with that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it changes how people treat me.” I looked out the window. “Or how I worry they will.”
She let that sit for a moment.
“Is there anyone in that world who wishes you harm?”
The question caught me off guard.
“There’s Sam.”
“Who’s Sam?”
“Sam Sheridan. We built the company together, practically from nothing.” I felt my jaw tighten just saying his name. “Two years ago I found out he’d been abusing his position with women on staff. Harassment. Worse, with a few of them. I forced him out.”
“That sounds like the right decision.”
“It was. He didn’t see it that way.” I exhaled slowly.
“He’s never forgiven me for it. He used to make comments about Naomi, actually.
Called her boring. Said I’d settled.” I shook my head.
“Sam’s never respected a woman in his life.
He wouldn’t understand what Naomi and I have if I drew him a diagram. ”
“Do you think about him often?”
“Not until recently.” I paused. “But when that message arrived, some part of me kept circling back to how badly someone would have to want to hurt me to bother constructing something like that.”
“And Sam came to mind.”
“He did. I don’t have any proof.” I looked down at my hands. “But I haven’t been able to let go of the feeling that this wasn’t random.”
“I loved her.”
“I believe that too.” She leaned forward slightly. “The problem was never whether you loved Naomi.” I swallowed. “It was whether your fear had more authority than your knowledge of her.”
I closed my eyes. Every memory came flooding back. Naomi standing in fertility clinics. Naomi holding my hand. Naomi laughing in our kitchen. Naomi looking at me with complete disbelief after I asked for the paternity test. The problem had never been her. Not for a single second. It had been me.
I hadn’t married a woman who was difficult to trust. I’d become a man who allowed fear to drown out everything he already knew about the woman he loved.
For the first time since she’d left, I stopped asking what had happened to my marriage. Instead, I started asking what had happened to me.
Dustin was already waiting when I arrived at the restaurant. He stood as I approached the table.
“Patrick.”
“Dustin.”
For a second, neither of us moved. Then he held out his hand. I shook it. His grip was awkward, tentative, like he wasn’t sure he had the right to be there.
“I appreciate you meeting me.”
“I almost didn’t.”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you.”
We sat. A server appeared with menus, but neither of us looked at them.
“I’ll just have coffee,” I said.
“The same.”
The server nodded and walked away. Silence settled over the table. Dustin looked older than he had a few weeks ago. The lines around his eyes seemed deeper. He kept rubbing the back of his neck, a nervous habit I’d seen him do before difficult presentations.
Finally, he exhaled.
“I owe you an apology.” I didn’t say anything. “I’ve been thinking about that night ever since.” He looked down at his hands. “I should never have put those ideas in your head.” The words hung between us. “I wasn’t trying to destroy your marriage.”
“I know.”
“I thought I was helping.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Some help.”
I wrapped both hands around my coffee mug.
“Dustin.”
He looked up.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You don’t.” His voice cracked. “I saw the way Naomi looked at you before she left.” I looked away. “I’ve never seen anyone look that broken.”
Neither had I. It haunted me every night.
“I keep replaying what I said.” He swallowed. “If I’d just kept my mouth shut—”
I interrupted him quietly.
“You didn’t ruin my marriage.”
He stared at me.
“What?”
“You didn’t.”
“Patrick—”
“I did.”
He frowned.
“I don’t understand.”
“You gave me a possibility.” I paused. “I turned it into a judgment.”
He was silent.
“You didn’t ask Naomi for a paternity test.”
“I told you it was something you should think about.”
“You did.” I nodded. “And I listened.”
He opened his mouth to respond. I shook my head.
“No.”
“Patrick—”
“You voiced a fear.” I stared into my coffee.
“I chose not to defend my wife.” The words came more easily than I expected.
Maybe because I’d already said them to myself a hundred times.
“Dustin, if you’d told me the sky was green, I wouldn’t have believed you.
” He blinked. “If you’d told me my father had robbed a bank, I would’ve laughed.
” I met his eyes. “So why did I believe you when you suggested my wife might have betrayed me?”
His shoulders slumped.
“I don’t know.”
“I do.” I thought back to my therapy session that morning. Dr. Foster’s question echoed through my mind. Why was one anonymous text more convincing than eight years of your wife’s character? The answer still hurt. “Because I was afraid.”
Dustin nodded slowly.
“I could see that.”
“But fear isn’t an excuse.”
“No.”
“It explains what I felt.” I looked out the restaurant window. “It doesn’t explain what I chose.”
The server returned with our coffee. Neither of us touched it. After she walked away, Dustin spoke again.
“I’ve been blaming myself.”
“I know.”
“I thought if I’d never said those words—” He trailed off.
I understood why. It would’ve been easier if someone else had been responsible. If I could point at Dustin. Or the anonymous message. Or the cropped photograph. Anyone but myself.
“I wanted that too.” He looked at me. “I spent days blaming the message.” I gave a small, humorless smile. “Then I blamed whoever sent it.”
“And now?”
“Now I know neither of them asked Naomi the question that destroyed our marriage.” The truth settled heavily between us. “I did.”
Dustin looked genuinely sad.
“What are you going to do?”
I thought about the letters I’d been writing. The therapy appointments already scheduled weeks in advance. The empty side of my bed.
“I don’t know if there’s anything I can do.”
“There has to be.”
I slowly shook my head.
“I can’t fix what happened.”
“No.”
“I can only become the man I should’ve been before it happened.”
The words surprised me. Not because they weren’t true. Because, for the first time, I actually believed them. Winning Naomi back couldn’t be my goal. Changing myself had to be. Otherwise, every apology would just be another attempt to escape the consequences of my own choices.
Dustin reached across the table and squeezed my shoulder.
“I hope she sees that someday.”
“So do I.”
I picked up my coffee. It had already gone cold. Neither of us asked for another cup. Some conversations weren’t meant to leave you feeling warm.