3. Sophia #2
“Your mother said Camille knows you better than anyone.”
The words were out before I could stop them. I regretted them immediately. They sounded petty. Jealous. Exactly as small as I didn’t want to be.
“My mother was joking.”
“I know.”
Alexander glanced at me. I could feel him trying to read the silence.
“Then why are we doing this?”
“I don’t know.” I stared at my hands in my lap. “I’m sorry. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid if it’s bothering you.” His voice had shifted into that careful register, the one he used for difficult conversations. Managing mode. I hated that I knew the difference. “Sophia, if you’re worried about Camille…”
“I’m not.”
“Because there’s nothing there. There never has been. She’s my assistant. She’s good at her job. That’s it.”
“I know that.”
“Then what?” He sounded genuinely confused. “What does that mean?”
I should have dropped it. I should have smiled and said it was nothing and let the silence fill with easier talk.
But his mother’s voice kept playing in my head.
Knows him better than anyone. And underneath it, the image of Camille knowing about Frankfurt.
About the three a.m. homecoming. About the rescheduled flight.
“She knew you’d only slept four hours,” I said. “She knew about the Frankfurt trip. She knew you ignored the later flight she’d booked for you.”
“Because she books the flights. Because she manages my schedule.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the issue?”
I turned to look at him. He was frowning at the road, a small crease between his eyebrows.
“I didn’t know any of those things,” I said. “You didn’t tell me.”
“It was just work. Boring logistics.”
“It’s always just work. That’s the point.”
“I don’t…” He took a breath. Let it out. “Sophia, I don’t understand what you’re asking me. Camille knows my schedule because it’s her job to know my schedule. That’s not some betrayal. That’s Tuesday.”
“I’m not saying it’s a betrayal.”
“Then what are you saying?”
I didn’t have the words. Or I had them, but they sounded ridiculous even inside my own head.
I’m saying that a stranger holds the small pieces of your life that used to be mine.
I’m saying that I used to know when you couldn’t sleep.
I’m saying that somewhere along the way, you stopped telling me things, and now I learn about your insomnia from the woman who books your hotels.
“Forget it,” I said. “I’m being sensitive.”
“You’re taking an ordinary gesture and making it personal.
” His voice wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t gentle either.
He said it the way he said everything at work, wanting the problem solved so he could move on to the next one.
“Things have been strained lately. I understand that. But Camille isn’t the reason. ”
“I know she isn’t.”
“She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“I know.”
“Then can we…” He gestured vaguely. “Can we not do this? I can’t apologize for having an assistant who’s good at her job. That’s not a reasonable ask.”
He was right. He was completely, infuriatingly right.
Camille hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d shown up on a Sunday because the contracts couldn’t wait.
She’d sat at the table because Marguerite had insisted.
She’d known about Frankfurt because knowing about Frankfurt was literally what we paid her for.
None of it was wrong. All of it still hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re right. I’m being ridiculous.”
“You’re not ridiculous.” His hand found mine on the center console. Squeezed. “You have nothing to worry about. I promise. Camille is an employee. You’re my wife. The two aren’t comparable.”
“I know.”
“Good.” He sounded relieved. Genuinely relieved. The conversation was over. The problem was solved. He could stop managing and go back to driving.
I let him hold my hand the rest of the way home.
I didn’t say that she wasn’t what I was worried about.
I didn’t say that the ache ran lonelier than jealousy, and deeper.
That I wasn’t afraid he wanted Camille. I was afraid that somewhere along the way, he’d stopped wanting to share anything with me at all.
The guest room was just the symptom. Camille was just the mirror. The real problem was that I’d started learning about my own husband secondhand, and he didn’t even notice.
We pulled into the parking garage beneath our building. Alexander turned off the engine and sat there for a moment, still holding my hand.
“I love you,” he said. “You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“Good.”
He kissed my knuckles once, a gesture so familiar it hurt, and got out of the car.
I followed. We rode the elevator in comfortable silence.
He checked his phone. Three new emails from Camille, probably.
The Nakamura deal. The revised shipping schedule.
The thousand small details of his life that I wasn’t part of anymore.
Inside the apartment, he went straight to the kitchen to pour himself a scotch. I stood in the doorway of my studio, looking at the drafting table, the controlled chaos, the coffee-stained sketchbook with the unfinished necklace that had been unfinished for eight years.
“Alexander?”
He looked up from his glass.
“What does knowing someone mean, to you?”
He blinked. “What?”
“Your mother said Camille knows you better than anyone. What does that mean? Knowing someone?”
“I don’t…” He shook his head. “Sophia, I thought we were done with this.”
“We are. I’m just asking.”
He took a long drink. Set the glass down. Rubbed a hand along his jaw.
“Knowing someone is… I don’t know. Understanding them. Their patterns, their preferences, what they need.”
“And who knows you like that?”
“You do,” he said, but there was a pause before he said it. A tiny hesitation that probably meant nothing.
Probably.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to work for a bit.”
“On a Sunday?”
“The kintsugi pieces won’t design themselves.”
He nodded. Already reaching for his phone. Already sliding back into the version of himself that I barely recognized anymore.
I closed the studio door behind me. Sat down at my drafting table. Opened the coffee-stained sketchbook to the unfinished necklace, the one he’d said should breathe instead of hold.
He’d been wrong about that, I thought. Wrong about what the center needed.
It didn’t need a doorway.
It needed an anchor.
Someone to stay.
I picked up my pencil and started sketching. Not the old necklace. A new piece, cracked on purpose. Fractures held together with gold.
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
Hi Sophia. This is Camille. I hope you don’t mind, I got your number from Alexander’s contacts. I just wanted to say how lovely it was to see you today, and that I’ve always admired your work. Would you be free for coffee sometime? I’d love to hear more about the kintsugi concept.
I stared at the screen until it went dark.