5. Alexander
— ? —
Alexander
I made it home by seven.
That sounds pathetic when I say it like that, but the truth is I’d blocked the hour in my calendar three days ago, labeled it UNAVAILABLE in all caps, and spent the entire afternoon fielding Camille’s increasingly pointed reminders about the Cartier call I was pushing to tomorrow.
Let her think I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had.
My wife had asked me, without asking, to come home for dinner, and I was going to do it if the entire Paris office had to burn.
The apartment smelled like rosemary and garlic when I walked in.
Sophia was in the kitchen, barefoot, her hair twisted up with what looked like a pencil holding it in place.
She’d changed out of her work clothes into that oversized linen shirt she used to steal from my side of the closet, back when she still slept on my side of anything.
“You’re early,” she said, not turning around.
“I’m on time.”
“Exactly.” She glanced over her shoulder, and there it was. That small, surprised smile she failed to hide in time. “I made agneau aux herbes.”
My chest tightened, inconveniently. Lamb with herbs. The dish she’d learned from her mother’s recipe, the one she used to make on Sunday nights in our first apartment when we couldn’t afford to eat out and she’d insist that poverty was romantic if you had enough garlic. I hadn’t had it in years.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.” She wiped her hands on a towel, turned to face me fully. “I wanted to. Consider it a peace offering. Or an apology. Or just dinner, if we’re too tired for subtext.”
“I’m always too tired for subtext.”
“Liar.” But she was smiling, really smiling, and I crossed the kitchen to kiss her forehead before I could overthink it. She let me. That counted as a win.
We ate at the small table by the window, the one we never used anymore because I was never home and she’d started taking her meals in the studio.
Sophia had set it properly, cloth napkins and the good wine glasses, and I understood what she was doing.
Rebuilding. Laying bricks one at a time and hoping the foundation would hold.
I wanted to tell her I saw it. That I was grateful. That I knew what the last few days had cost her and I was trying, I was really trying, to be the version of myself she’d married instead of the one who showed up everywhere except home.
Instead I said, “The wine’s good.”
“It’s the Chateauneuf-du-Pape from Henri’s wedding.”
“We still had a bottle?”
“I’ve been saving it.” She took a sip, watching me over the rim. “For a special occasion.”
“Is this a special occasion?”
“You came home for dinner, Alexander. At this point that qualifies.”
It should have stung. It did sting, a little. But she said it gently, almost teasing, and I let myself laugh instead of apologize. Progress. We were making progress.
“Tell me about your day,” I said. “Not Whitmore. You.”
“Those are the same thing lately.”
“They shouldn’t be.”
Sophia considered this, twirling her fork through the lamb. “I walked through the Marais after work. Found a stall selling vintage buttons. Bought a bag of them for no reason except they were pretty and the woman reminded me of my mother.” She paused. “I called her, actually. First time in weeks.”
“How is she?”
“Still disappointed I married money instead of art. Still asking when I’m going to give her grandchildren. Still Sylvie.” She shrugged, but I caught the edge underneath. “Béatrice is pregnant again, apparently. That’s three.”
“Did you tell her we’re working on it?”
The words came out before I could stop them, and I watched Sophia’s face fight itself. We weren’t working on it. We hadn’t worked on it in over a year. The guest room had a lock on the inside now, one I pretended not to notice.
“I told her we were busy,” she said finally. “She said that’s what everyone says right before their marriage falls apart.”
“Sylvie has always had a gift for comfort.”
“She learned it from the nuns.” Sophia smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Eat your lamb. It’s getting cold.”
I looked down at my plate. I’d barely touched it. The meat was beautifully cooked, pink in the center, exactly how I used to like it. My stomach turned.
“It’s delicious,” I said.
“You haven’t eaten any.”
“I’m savoring it.”
“You’re pushing it around your plate like a child hiding vegetables.” Sophia set down her fork. “What’s wrong? Is it overcooked? I can never get the timing right without my mother standing over my shoulder threatening me with a wooden spoon.”
“No, it’s perfect. Really.” I forced myself to take a bite, chew, swallow. My throat resisted. “I just haven’t had lamb in a while. My stomach’s not used to it.”
“Since when? You used to request this for your birthday.”
“I don’t know. A year, maybe? Camille usually orders lighter for me when we’re working late. Grilled fish, salads. I got used to it.” I reached for my wine, not thinking about what I’d just said until I saw Sophia’s face change. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Sophia.”
“It’s nothing.” She picked up her fork again, but she wasn’t eating either now. The warmth from five minutes ago had evaporated like it had never existed. “I just didn’t know you’d stopped eating lamb.”
“I didn’t stop. I just don’t have it as often.”
“Because Camille orders you salads.”
“Because salads are lighter and I work fourteen-hour days. It’s not a conspiracy.” The sharpness in my voice surprised me, and I pulled it back. “I should have told you. I didn’t think about it.”
“You didn’t think about it.” She laughed, and it wasn’t the good kind. “No, of course you didn’t. Why would you?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I spent two hours making your old favorite meal, Alexander, and you can’t eat it because your assistant has apparently retrained your entire palate while I wasn’t looking.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Probably not.” She stood up, started clearing plates even though neither of us had finished. “I’m not trying to be fair. I’m trying to understand how I ended up married to someone I don’t know anymore.”
I caught her wrist as she reached for my plate. Gentle, not controlling. I hoped.
“Sophia. Sit down, please.”
She sat, but she didn’t look at me. Her jaw was tight, her hands flat on the table, and I recognized this version of her. The one who was working very hard not to cry.
“Talk to me,” I said. “What’s actually bothering you?”
“I told you what’s bothering me.”
“You told me you’re upset about lamb. I don’t think that’s the whole story.”
“The lamb is a symptom, Alexander.” She finally met my eyes, and I saw what was there and it scared me.
Not anger. Exhaustion. “She knows things about you that I don’t.
Small things. What you eat. What you drink.
How you take your scotch now, probably. All these tiny details that make up a person, and I keep learning them secondhand, like I’m being introduced to some new version of my husband that I wasn’t invited to meet. ”
“She’s my assistant. It’s literally her job to know those things.”
“It used to be mine.”
“Knowing what I order for lunch was never your job.”
“No, it was just my life.” Her voice cracked, just slightly.
“I used to know you, Alexander. Every version of you. The one who stayed up too late and the one who couldn’t function without terrible coffee and the one who hated lamb until I made it for him the first time and he pretended to love it to spare my feelings.
I knew all of that because we shared a life.
And now I’m finding out you’ve changed, you’ve become someone different, and I wasn’t there for any of it. ”
“You were there. You are there. You’re my wife.”
“Then why does your assistant know you better than I do?”
“She doesn’t,” I said, too fast.
“She knew about the lamb.”
“It’s just food, Sophia.” I stood up, moving away from the table because I couldn’t sit still anymore. “You’re blowing this up into more than it is.”
“And you’re refusing to see what it is.”
“What is it, then? Tell me. Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re punishing me for having a competent assistant who pays attention to her job.”
Sophia laughed again, harsh and humorless. “There it is. Camille the saint. Camille the competent. Camille who’s never done anything wrong except slowly replace me in every corner of your life.”
“She hasn’t replaced you. That’s insane.”
“Don’t call me insane.” Her voice had gone very quiet, which was worse than shouting.
“I’m not calling you insane, I’m saying the idea is insane. She schedules my meetings. She orders my lunch. She doesn’t sleep in my bed.”
“Neither do I.”
That landed like a punch. I felt it in my chest, in my gut, everywhere at once.
“That’s your choice,” I said quietly.
“Is it?” Sophia stood up too, and now we were facing each other across the kitchen like opponents in a ring. “Or is it the only choice you left me?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I got tired of lying next to someone who wasn’t there.
It means I’d rather sleep alone than pretend we’re still close when you spend more waking hours with her than you do with me.
It means at least in the guest room I don’t have to wonder why my husband can’t remember what I look like but knows his assistant’s handwriting by heart. ”
“That’s not the same thing.” It came out weaker than I intended.
“It’s exactly the same thing, Alexander. You just don’t want to see it.”
My patience, frayed from weeks of this, finally snapped. “What do you want me to do, Sophia? Fire her? Fire my assistant because she knows what I order for dinner? Would that make you happy? Would that prove anything?”
“I want you to understand why it hurts.”