Chapter 9 Lines #2
The gravel crunches under my feet as I cross the courtyard. My father turns at the sound, his expression shifting from protective anger to something more complicated when he sees me.
"Sera." He takes a step toward me, putting himself between me and the gate. "You don't have to do this. I can send him away."
"I know." I stop beside him, close enough that I can see Rafael clearly through the bars. "I want to talk to him. But you can stay nearby."
My father hesitates, then nods once and moves to the side of the courtyard, far enough to give us privacy but close enough to intervene if I need him. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful he's not trying to handle this for me.
Rafael's eyes haven't left my face since I came outside. He looks worse up close, the circles under his eyes darker, his jaw rough with stubble he hasn't bothered to shave. His hands are wrapped around the iron bars of the gate, knuckles white with pressure.
"Sera." He loosens one hand from the bars as if he means to reach for me, then leaves it at his side. "Please. I need to talk to you."
"Then talk." I stay where I am, three feet back from the gate, far enough that he can't reach me even if he tried. "You have five minutes."
"All right." He lets go of the other bar. The effort it takes him to stand still is visible in his hands. "Thank you for coming out."
"I need you to hear me this time." I cross my arms over my chest, keeping the sweater closed against the breeze. "Before you start explaining that night."
"I know I can't fix it with words." He leans toward the gate, then stops. I hate that seeing him hesitate makes me want to move closer. "But what happened Thursday night... I told you on Friday that I only remember pieces. I still don't understand everything you walked in on."
"I care about more than Thursday night." I have to look past him at his car to get the words out. "That was only the end. I need you to understand everything that came before it."
"The anniversary." He takes hold of a bar again, leaving his other hand at his side. "I know. I missed our anniversary. I promised I'd be there, and I wasn't. You have every right to be furious."
"The anniversary mattered because I'd asked you for it." Does he remember that part? How relieved I was when he gave me a time and promised to keep it? "I wasn't waiting for you to guess what I needed. I told you. I've been telling you for months."
"Do you know what it's like to be the surest thing in someone's life?
" I step closer to the gate, close enough now that I could touch the bars if I reached out.
I don't. "To be so reliable, so steady, so understanding, that they never have to try for you?
That's what I became. You heard me asking and still assumed I could wait.
There was always something more urgent. I don't think you ever imagined I would stop waiting. "
"I thought we could get through it." He looks toward the house, then back at me, as if he's only just heard his own assumption. "I thought you knew it wouldn't always be like this…"
"How was I supposed to know?" My voice carries farther than I want it to. I lower it without taking back the question. "You were hardly talking to me. I had to hear what frightened you from Marisol."
Rafael is quiet. His grip loosens, and he looks down at the gravel between us.
I should leave it there. I've already said enough for him to understand that Marisol knew things about my husband that I didn't. But the workroom comes back anyway, not in pieces this time but whole enough that my body remembers it before I want to.
"I heard you that night."
Rafael looks up.
"At the workroom."
His expression shifts almost imperceptibly, and I know he remembers before he says anything.
My voice is quieter than I expected. I look past him toward the road between the groves because if I keep looking at his face, I might start softening things for him again.
"I spent that whole day telling myself not to take it personally.
It was work. You were under pressure. Marisol knew the buyer.
There was always some sensible reason for why I wasn't included.
" My fingers tighten around the edge of my sweater.
"I was already doing the work of making it hurt less before I even knew what you'd say. "
Rafael lowers his eyes.
"Then I came downstairs and heard how easily you decided."
His hand shifts against the gate.
"Like my being there wasn't something you needed to think very hard about. Like I'd become one more thing that would make the day heavier."
"Sera, that wasn't what I..."
I look at him, and he stops.
"I'd been trying for weeks to find some way back to you. I didn't need to sit in every meeting or know every number. I just wanted you to stop shutting me out long enough to tell me what was happening." My throat tightens. "And somehow even that started to feel like too much to ask."
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The breeze moves through the leaves beyond the wall. Somewhere down the road, a dog barks once and then goes quiet again.
I could stop there.
I almost do.
But there is one part of that night I've carried more carefully than the rest, as if naming it would make me sound smaller than I want to be.
"Marisol touched you."
Rafael frowns.
"What?"
"She came around the desk while you were sitting there. You had your eyes closed."
The image rises so clearly that I have to look away.
"She put her hand on your arm. Then she moved your hair back from your forehead."
He watches me, confused rather than guilty.
"I don't remember that."
The answer hurts in a way I wasn't prepared for.
A quiet laugh slips out of me.
"Of course you don't."
His face tightens.
"I'm not saying you were doing something with her." That should have made the moment harmless. I tried very hard to make it harmless. My voice softens despite myself. "But I knew her face."
"I'd known her for years. I knew what she looked like when she was amused, when she was pretending to be sympathetic, when she liked someone's attention." I swallow. "And for a second, I looked at my best friend touching my husband and didn't recognize the expression on her face."
Rafael goes still.
"I spent the rest of the night trying to convince myself I'd imagined it."
The confession feels more exposing than I expected.
"I told myself I was lonely. Jealous. That things between us had gotten bad enough that I was starting to see danger where there wasn't any."
My eyes burn.
"I trusted both of you so much that when something felt wrong, I decided I must be the problem."
Rafael lets go of the gate but I keep going before I can lose my nerve.
"I didn't want to become suspicious of her. I didn't want to doubt you. So I doubted myself instead."
The words leave something raw behind them.
For a few seconds, all I can hear is my own breathing.
Then I shake my head.
"The stupid part is, I hadn't even gone downstairs because I was worried about either of you."
His expression changes.
"I went down because I wanted to tell you something."
"What?" The question comes too quickly, too much like the old Rafael.
My throat closes.
"I'd wanted to talk to you. Share my day with you." A small smile almost finds me despite everything. "There’s a ridiculous story that day and on the drive home, I kept thinking about how you'd react. I already knew what you'd say. I knew you'd think it was funny too."
His mouth twitches faintly. "Sera..."
"It wasn't important." I look at him. "It was nothing. Just one small piece of my day I wanted to give you because that's what I'd always done."
My voice drops.
"Since we were children, I've saved things for you without thinking about it. Something happened, and somewhere in my head I was already telling you before I got home."
The ache in my chest spreads slowly now, heavier than sharp.
"I went downstairs with a story for my husband."
I meet his eyes.
"And I went back upstairs with it still inside me."
Rafael looks wrecked, but I don't stop.
"After that, I started noticing how many things I was keeping to myself."
His brow draws together.
"Not because I stopped wanting to tell you. Because somewhere along the way I got used to waiting for a better time." I breathe out slowly. "Then I got used to there not being one."
The courtyard feels impossibly quiet.
"There wasn't one big moment when I stopped reaching for you." My voice barely rises above the wind in the trees. "It happened slowly enough that I didn't notice at first."
I hold his gaze. "You didn't notice at all."
For several seconds, neither of us moves.
Then Rafael says quietly, "I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I tried… We had that afternoon in the workshop..."
The memory lands somewhere tender. I nod.
"You’re right." Remembering his hands over mine hurts more than looking at them curled around the iron now. My throat tightens again. "That one time you stayed when you could've gone back to work. You listened. You asked questions. You were there and I trusted that."
Rafael's eyes don't leave mine.
"It's why I let myself look forward to our dinner."
"Believe me, I wanted that dinner, too." He looks up, and I can see how hard he's trying to hold my eyes. "I let the problem at the office take the whole evening. By the time..."
"You can explain that when you understand it.
" I move aside as the late sun catches my eyes through the bars.
"But I won't argue about whether her hand was on your shoulder long enough to count as something. All I’m saying is I wanted to be your wife in the daytime, too.
Someone you talked to. Someone you wanted beside you. "
"I brought her in to help with the estate." He stops there, watching my face. His hand drops from the bar. "I should have talked to you."
"She called me from your phone." My hands start shaking, and I press them against the sides of my trousers. "Then she wouldn't leave us alone when I asked her to. Do you understand what that felt like? My best friend deciding whether I could speak to my husband?"