5. Rhodes #3
“We’ll get it tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to forget it there.”
She laughs softly. “Rhodes. It’s survived eleven years in a cabinet. It’ll survive one night in my shop.”
“Still.”
But I don’t move. I can’t make myself break this moment, this fragile peace we’ve built from Chinese food and old flowers and the decision to try again.
Tomorrow I’ll get the ranunculus. Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to be sustainable, how to stop taking things for granted, how to let her into the parts of my life I’ve been editing out for years.
Tonight I just want to hold my wife and believe impossible things.
I wake up early. Force of habit, or maybe just the knowledge that for once, I have somewhere I want to be that isn’t the office.
Maren’s still sleeping. The early light catches her hair, the curve of her shoulder, the slight frown she always wears in the moments before she’s fully awake. I’ve seen this face a thousand times. I want to see it a thousand more.
I slip out of bed carefully, find a piece of paper in her nightstand. The pen takes a second, she has a collection of them scattered everywhere, the aftermath of someone who’s always making lists.
I love you. I’ll call you later. R
Then I remember. The ranunculus.
I grab my keys, my phone, and drive to Bellamy Blooms before Maren can wake up and ask where I’ve gone. The shop is still dark, it’s barely six, but I have the spare key she gave me years ago, the one I’ve almost never used because I’m almost never the one coming here.
The champagne bottle is right where we left it. I take it back to the house, back to our bedroom. Maren’s still asleep.
I set the bottle on her nightstand, right beside the note. The ranunculus looks almost pretty in the morning light, a crooked little survivor that refused to be thrown away.
This is the first version, I think. We can do better. But this is where we start.
I lean down, brush a kiss against her temple. She stirs, murmurs something, but doesn’t wake.
My phone buzzes as I’m heading downstairs. Work. Of course it’s work. It’s always work.
But today I’m going to handle it differently. Today I’m going to tell Maren what happens, all the boring parts, all the frustrating details. Today I’m going to let her into the life I’ve been building without her.
Today is the fourth day. And it’s not going to hurt.
Maren calls me at eight, and I can hear the smile in her voice.
“You brought the flower back.”
“Told you I didn’t want to forget it.”
“You also left a note.”
“Should I have left a sonnet instead? I can revise.”
“Rhodes.” She laughs, and the sound travels through the phone like sunlight. “Thank you.”
“For the note?”
“For coming back.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I settle for: “I’ll always come back.”
“That’s the hope.”
We talk for another ten minutes, just small things, her morning deliveries, my meeting schedule, whether we should try that Chinese place for a real dinner instead of floor picnic. Normal couple things. The kind of conversation we used to have before everything got complicated.
When I hang up, I feel lighter than I have in months.
My assistant forwards me a reminder: the anniversary gala promotional materials are ready for review. There’s an attachment, the photographer’s selects from the magazine shoot.
I open it on autopilot, expecting the usual corporate glamour shots. The Sinclair looking beautiful, the team looking professional, me looking like someone who’s in control of an empire.
The first image stops me cold.
It’s me and Rachel. The shot from the interview, when she’d said something that made me laugh. Her hand is on my arm, and we’re both smiling, and we look exactly like what the gossip sites already think we are.
This is the promotional image. This is what will go out to every outlet, every partner, every guest invited to the gala.
My wife isn’t in a single photo.
I think about Maren waking up to my note. Reading it with the ranunculus on her nightstand. Feeling, maybe, like we’d finally turned a corner.
Then I think about her seeing this image plastered across every promotional material for the company that’s stolen me from her for years.
Stop living like you already have me.
I grab my phone.
“Stop the press release,” I say when my publicist picks up. “I need different photos for the gala.”
“Rhodes, we’re sending this out in thirty minutes-”
“Then you have twenty-nine to find something else.”
I hang up before she can argue.
It won’t matter. I already know it won’t matter. Because somewhere across the city, Maren’s phone is lighting up with the notification, and she’s going to see the image before I can stop it.
The promotional email has already gone out.
I know this because my own phone chimes with it, the calendar reminder, the save-the-date, the glossy invitation featuring a photograph of me and Rachel at the magazine shoot, looking like the couple who built the company together.
My wife is across the city with a dead flower on her nightstand and a note that says I love you.
And I’m about to ruin everything again.