Chapter 8
Theo
By the time I pulled into the driveway, it was almost eleven. I sat behind the wheel for a moment, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
Lilian was going to be fine. A fractured wrist, a concussion they wanted to monitor overnight. Frightening, and nothing worse than that. Sofia had calmed down once the doctors explained everything, and Mom had hugged me before I left.
“I don’t know what we’d do without you,” she’d said.
I’d smiled. “I’ll always be here.”
Now all I wanted was to go inside, apologize to Josephine again, and convince her we’d have dinner tomorrow. No interruptions, no excuses, just us.
I unlocked the front door. “Jo?”
Silence answered me. I frowned. “Josephine?”
The living room was dark and the kitchen lights were off. Maybe she’d already gone to bed. I slipped off my shoes and walked farther into the house.
“I know you’re probably asleep.” I smiled to myself. “I’m sorry.”
Still nothing came back. I climbed the stairs two at a time.
Our bedroom door stood open, the bedside lamp off, the bed perfectly made. I stopped in the doorway.
“Jo?”
An uneasy feeling settled low in my stomach. She wasn’t in the bathroom. The closet light was off.
I reached for my phone. Maybe she’d gone to Gwen’s, or texted me while I was at the hospital. I unlocked the screen. No missed calls, no messages.
That wasn’t like her. Even when she was upset, she always let me know where she was.
I walked back downstairs. The house had changed in some way I couldn’t name, less empty than absent, as though someone had quietly removed something essential.
I looked toward the entryway. Her purse wasn’t on the table, and I hadn’t noticed before.
Then my eyes drifted to the console beneath the wedding photograph. An envelope rested there with my name written across the front in Josephine’s handwriting.
Theo.
My heart beat a little faster. I stepped closer.
Something gleamed beside it. For a second my mind refused to understand what I was seeing. Then it did.
Her wedding ring.
I stared at it. Josephine never took off her ring. Not for vacations, not for work, not even when it needed cleaning. She always joked she’d rather have a dull ring than an empty finger.
I picked it up with trembling fingers. It was still warm, or I imagined it was. The gold band felt impossibly light in my palm.
My eyes returned to the envelope, and a cold weight settled in my chest. This wasn’t another conversation or another postponed dinner. This was something I hadn’t seen coming.
For the first time since I’d met Josephine, fear moved through me that no apology, no promise, and no rescheduled weekend could immediately erase.
Slowly, I reached for the envelope.
Theo,
If you’re reading this, it means I finally found the courage to leave. Not because I stopped loving you. Because I couldn’t keep disappearing inside our marriage.
I know what you’re probably thinking. That this happened because of tonight. It didn’t. Tonight was simply the moment I accepted that nothing was ever going to change unless I did.
I don’t blame your family. I never have. Lilian is an innocent little girl. Sofia loves her daughter. David has always depended on you. Margaret loves her children fiercely.
None of them made the promises you made to me. You did.
You once promised I would always be your partner. That we’d face life together. That our marriage would come first.
I believed you. I think you believed yourself.
Somewhere along the way, though, “we” became whatever time was left after everyone else had been taken care of.
You always had a reason. A sick niece. A brother in another crisis. A worried mother. An important meeting. Every explanation made sense on its own, and I understood every single one.
That’s what hurts the most. I always understood. You became so certain I’d understand that you stopped asking what it was costing me.
I kept waiting for one moment when you’d say, “I can’t tonight. Josephine needs me.”
That moment never came.
Instead, I learned to expect the phone to ring. I learned not to get too excited about birthdays, anniversaries, weekends away, even dinner. Because I knew that if someone else needed you, I’d quietly become tomorrow.
You always told me you’d make it up to me.
Theo, love isn’t something you make up later. It’s something you choose while you still have the chance.
I don’t hate you. I don’t want revenge. I don’t even want you to feel guilty. I just need to stop living a life where I’m grateful for whatever pieces of you are left over.
You once asked me why I was hurting. The answer was never that you loved your family too much. It was that you never seemed to realize loving them didn’t require choosing me less.
I hope one day you understand the difference.
I’m leaving because I still love you. If I stayed much longer, I don’t think I would.
Please don’t come looking for me until you’ve asked yourself one question. Not whether you love me. I’ve never doubted that.
Ask yourself whether you ever truly chose me first.
— Josephine
I finished reading and stared at the signature long after the words had blurred. My hands were shaking.
“No...” The whisper barely escaped my lips.
This couldn’t be happening. She hadn’t left. She’d gone somewhere to think, she’d be back tomorrow, she always came back from difficult conversations.
Except there had never been a letter before. Never a ring.
I looked down at the gold band still resting in my palm. My chest tightened until it hurt to breathe.
Every sentence replayed in my head.
You became so certain I’d understand...
I learned not to get excited...
You never seemed to realize loving them didn’t require choosing me less.
I wanted to argue, to explain, to tell her she had it wrong. Standing alone in the silence of our house, I couldn’t think of a single time she’d asked me to choose her and I actually had.
For a long moment I couldn’t move. The house was unnaturally still.
Josephine had always filled it without trying, music playing softly while she cooked, a candle burning in the living room, her laugh drifting upstairs when she was talking to Gwen.
I’d never thought about those things. I’d expected them to be there.
Now all I could hear was the clock ticking in the hallway.
I looked at my phone. 11:18.
I tapped Josephine’s name. The call went straight to voicemail. I hung up and called again. Voicemail. A third time, the same.
“Come on, Jo...”
I sent a text.
Me: Please call me. We need to talk.
The message showed as delivered. No reply came.
I paced across the living room. Where would she go? A hotel? Her sister, and she didn’t have a sister.
My mind jumped somewhere else. Gwen. Of course. Gwen had always been her closest friend, and if Josephine left anyone, she’d leave with Gwen.
I grabbed my keys so quickly that I almost dropped them.
The letter remained on the console, her wedding ring beside it. For half a second I considered taking it with me. Instead I left it exactly where she’d placed it, because moving it was wrong somehow.
I was out the front door less than a minute later.
The drive to Gwen’s house was a blur of red lights and missed speed limits, my foot pressing harder against the accelerator than it should have, my thoughts chasing each other in circles.
She’d be there. She had to be. Gwen would calm her down, I’d apologize, I’d explain, we’d go home. Somehow we’d fix this.
I pulled into Gwen’s driveway and barely remembered putting the car in park. The porch light was on. I rang the bell. Nothing. I rang it again.
A few seconds later the door opened. Gwen stood there in sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt, her expression hardening the moment she saw me.
“Theo,” she said.
“Is she here?”
She didn’t answer.
“Please.”
Her eyes searched my face. “What happened?”
“She left.”
A flicker of surprise crossed her features. “Left?”
I held up my empty hand without thinking. “She left her ring.”
Gwen’s expression changed completely. “What?”
“She wrote me a letter.”
For the first time, concern replaced the anger in her eyes. “Theo...”
“Is she here?”
She shook her head. “No.”
I stared at her. “No?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“She didn’t call you?”
“No.”
“Text you?”
“No.”
A knot formed in my stomach. “If she’s not here...”
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Gwen stepped outside onto the porch. “Theo.”
I looked at her.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” she said.
For the first time that night, I had absolutely no idea where my wife was.