Chapter 17 Apology Owed #3
"I didn't need you to be perfect." She turns her hand over, letting her fingers rest against mine. "I needed you to tell me when you were afraid. I needed you to stop saying you were fine when I could see you weren't."
"I owed you more than reassurance." I let my hand settle into hers.
Her fingers close, holding me there. "I owed you my attention every day, not just when I felt like giving it.
You weren't a prize I had to earn. You were my wife.
Showing up for you should have been the simplest thing in the world. "
"It should have been." She looks down at our joined hands. "Why wasn't it?"
I don't have a good answer. I don't have any answer that doesn't make me sound like exactly the kind of man I never wanted to be.
"Because I was selfish." It's the closest I can come to the truth.
"Because I wanted to be seen as someone who could handle everything, and that mattered more to me than actually being there for you.
Because I told myself you were strong enough to wait, and I used your strength as an excuse not to show up. "
She doesn't say anything. Her eyes are fixed on a point somewhere past my shoulder, her expression distant but not closed.
"And Marisol saw all of that." I force myself to continue. "Every weakness I was hiding from you, I showed to her instead. I let her know how far apart we were getting, and I kept letting that distance grow."
"You didn't know what she would do with it." Sera looks toward the door we closed against the terrace and everyone on it.
"No." I keep my hand still in hers. "But I should have known better than to give her that power. I should have been talking to you."
Sera is quiet for a long moment. When she finally speaks, her voice is steadier than before.
"I needed to hear you say that." She looks down at her lap, at the place where our hands meet. "Not just that you're sorry. That you understand what you did."
"I understand." I wait until she meets my eyes again. "I can't undo any of it. But I understand."
She looks at me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then her gaze drifts past me to something on the workbench.
"What's that?" She points past my shoulder, toward the corner of the bench.
I turn to follow her eyes. There's a small parcel sitting on the corner of the bench, wrapped in brown paper, half-hidden behind a row of amber bottles.
"I ordered it after Monday." I stand and retrieve it, holding it out to her. "After you showed me the jasmine formula in your notebook. The one you said you'd been wanting to make for yourself."
She takes the parcel but doesn't open it. "You ordered something for my formula?"
"You mentioned a maker whose jasmine you'd been trying to source." I watch her turn the package over in her hands. "I asked if they had any available."
"When did this arrive?" She finds the maker's name on the wrapper and stops turning it.
"Yesterday." I lean against the workbench, giving her space. "I was going to give it to you after the gathering. When things were calmer."
She holds the parcel for a moment longer, then carefully tears the brown paper. Inside is a small glass vial, the label handwritten in precise script. I watch her expression as she reads the maker's name, as she realizes what I've given her.
"This is the one." She traces the name on the label with a fingertip. "The batch I told you about."
"You said you wanted to try that one before changing the formula." I remember her explaining it beside me on Monday, long after I'd stopped asking about the estate. "I asked whether they could spare a sample from that batch."
She doesn't open the vial. She just holds it, turning it to catch the light, her expression shifting through something I can't quite read.
"This one isn't for the estate." She looks up at me, keeping the vial closed. "It might never be anything I sell."
"You told me." I remember how quickly I used to ask whether a thing could wait. "You wanted to make it for yourself. I want you to have that."
She sets the vial carefully on the workbench, her hand lingering on it for a moment. Then she turns to face me fully.
"I believe you understand now." She keeps her palm beside the little vial. "What hurt me. Why I left. I didn't know if you ever would."
"But?" I keep my hands off the parcel. I want to have done something right without expecting it to settle everything.
"But I'm not ready to come home yet." She takes her hand away from the vial, leaving it out of this part of the conversation. "I need more time. More proof that this isn't just another good day that disappears when things get hard."
"I understand." It hurts, but I do understand. I've spent months earning her distrust. A few weeks can't undo all of that. "Take whatever time you need."
"There's something I want." She puts the vial back in its wrapping, carefully enough that I have to resist offering to do it for her. "Tomorrow afternoon. After lunch."
"What would you like?" I stay beside her, waiting. I want to promise her everything before I even know what she's asking. This time, I can listen first.
She looks past me toward the groves, then back at my face. "Take me somewhere that was ours before I had to ask you to notice me."