Chapter 24
Elise
I invite Bennett to coffee because a ten-week residency is apparently long enough to turn terror into curiosity.
We meet at a place halfway between Tessa's apartment and Halcyon.
Neutral territory.
He is already there when I arrive.
Some things are changing.
He stands.
Does not touch me.
"Hi."
"Hi."
I sit.
For a minute, we discuss coffee like strangers.
Then Bennett says, "I owe you an apology that isn't designed to get you to do anything."
My fingers tighten around the paper cup.
"Okay."
He looks tired.
Not performatively wrecked. Just like someone who has been sleeping less because sleep has become a place where thoughts are loud.
"I left our anniversary because I decided Maren's fear was urgent and your disappointment was survivable."
I look down.
"I didn't think that sentence consciously," he continues. "But it was the decision."
My throat tightens.
"At the gala, I told eight hundred people a truth about my relationship with Maren that I had never examined. I relied on her emotionally in ways I kept labeling as work because that label made me feel innocent."
I look at him sharply.
"Were you in love with her?"
He does not flinch.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Then what was it?"
"I liked being necessary to her. I liked having someone who understood every professional fear without explanation. I let that become a kind of intimacy I should have been building with you too."
The too matters.
He is not pretending spouses must meet every need.
He is naming the imbalance.
"And the gifts," he says. "The trips. The bracelet."
I almost smile.
"Especially the bracelet."
"I am sorry I kept trying to buy a shortcut back to normal."
"You always buy nice shortcuts."
His mouth twitches.
"Occupational hazard."
Silence.
I watch people move past the window.
"I don't need you to hate Maren," I say.
"I don't."
"Good. Because if this turns into 'evil other woman almost stole my husband,' then you learned nothing."
"I know."
"You built the door. She just got used to walking through it."
He absorbs that.
"Yes."
I hate how much I want to reach across the table.
I keep both hands around my cup.
"I have responsibility too," I say.
His face hardens immediately. "No."
"Don't do that."
"I am not letting you split blame because I neglected you."
"Responsibility isn't blame."
He goes quiet.
"I kept saying I was fine," I continue. "I thought being low-maintenance made me good at marriage. I punished you with silence sometimes and called it patience. I expected you to discover needs I had trained myself not to show."
"That doesn't make what I did okay."
"I didn't say it did."
He nods slowly.
For twenty minutes, we talk without solving anything.
It is one of the best conversations of our marriage.
When we stand to leave, Bennett reaches into his coat.
My body tenses.
He freezes.
"It's just your mail."
I laugh, startled.
"Right."
He hands me three envelopes from the apartment.
No gift.
No trap.
At the door, he says, "I miss you."
I close my eyes for half a second.
"I miss you too."
His face changes.
Hope is dangerous on him.
"That isn't a promise," I add.
"I know."
He opens the door for me.
For once, he lets the moment be exactly what it is.