13. Rhodes
— ? —
Rhodes
“She’ll come home.”
Julian looks at me over the rim of his whiskey glass, and I can see the doubt he’s too polite to voice. We’re in my office at The Sinclair, late, always late, because the world doesn’t stop spinning just because my wife walked out. The city glitters beyond the windows like nothing’s wrong.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“We’ve been married eleven years.” I swirl the scotch in my own glass, watching the amber catch the light. “She’s angry. She has every right to be angry. But she’ll come home.”
Even as I say it, something in my chest tightens. Maren’s single-word responses. The way she refuses to answer when I call. The text from an hour ago: I don’t have anything to say to you tonight.
That’s not the Maren I know. The Maren I know would have torn me apart with words by now, would have laid out exactly what I did wrong in precise, devastating detail. This silence feels different. Heavier.
“The footage isn’t helping,” Julian says carefully.
“The footage.” I set my glass down harder than I intend. “I was cornered. What was I supposed to say?”
“Anything other than what you said, probably.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. I’ve watched the clip seventeen times now, each viewing worse than the last. Maren gets emotional. She’ll cool off. Like she’s a child throwing a tantrum. Like eleven years of marriage can be dismissed with a wave of my hand.
Rachel understands the demands of my life in a way not everyone does.
I wasn’t even thinking when I said it. I was exhausted and blindsided and trying to defend Rachel against the affair rumors without making everything worse. But the way it came out, God, the way it sounded…
“I need to fix this,” I say.
“You need to talk to her.”
“She won’t talk to me.”
“Then you need to give her time.”
I don’t have time. That’s what I want to tell him.
Every day that passes, every news cycle that churns through our marriage like meat through a grinder, I feel her slipping further away.
But I just nod, because what else can I do?
I can’t force her to see me. I can’t make her understand that nothing I said was meant to hurt her.
That I’ve never meant to hurt her.
My phone lights up. For one stupid, hopeful second, I think it’s Maren.
It’s my mother.
Maria called. She says Maren’s sister came by the house to collect more of her things. Is there something you need to tell us?
I stare at the message until the screen goes dark.
The next morning, Nora Bellamy shows up at my door.
I know it’s her before I answer, I can see her through the security camera, standing on my front step with a cardboard box in her arms and murder in her eyes. She’s smaller than Maren, softer around the edges, but right now she looks like she could kill me with her bare hands and enjoy it.
I open the door anyway.
“Nora.”
“Rhodes.” She pushes past me without waiting for an invitation. “Maren asked me to get some of her things. I have a list.”
“You could have called. I’d have-”
“She doesn’t want you to have anything.” Nora sets the box on the entry table and pulls out her phone, scrolling through what I assume is Maren’s list. “Her grandmother’s jewelry box. The gray cashmere sweater, the long one. Her running shoes. The photo albums from the hall closet.”
Not clothes for a few days. Not a toothbrush and some makeup.
Photo albums.
“Nora.” My voice comes out wrong, too tight, too desperate. “Can you just tell me how she is? Is she-”
“She’s fine.”
“She’s not fine. She hasn’t been fine in months, and I know that’s my fault, but I need to-”
“She asked me to tell you something.” Nora finally looks at me, and the coldness in her expression makes my stomach drop. “She wants you to communicate only through text unless it’s important. Actual important. Not ‘I miss you’ important.”
“Nora-”
“Where’s the jewelry box?”
I stand there uselessly while Maren’s little sister moves through my house, our house, collecting pieces of my wife’s life. The gray sweater from the closet, the running shoes from the mudroom, the photo albums from the hall, the ones we’ve been adding to since we first started dating.
She’s not just angry. She’s not just cooling off.
She’s leaving.
“I need to talk to her,” I say when Nora returns to the foyer, box full. “Please, just five minutes. I’ll explain everything.”
“She doesn’t want explanations right now.”
“Then when? When does she want explanations? Because I’ve been trying to reach her for two weeks, and she won’t answer my calls, and she won’t see me, and now she’s sending you to collect photo albums like our entire marriage was just-”
“Was just what?” Nora’s voice goes sharp. “A decorative accessory? Something pretty to have around when you remember to notice it?”
The words sting, my own thrown back at me twisted.
I built this. You decorate it.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s what you said.” Nora picks up the box. “And then you said it again on camera. And then you said it again in that hallway. How many times do you have to say it before it becomes what you mean?”
“You want to know what she can’t say to your face?
” Nora shifts the box onto her hip and steps into my space, five-foot-four and somehow filling the whole foyer.
“She gave up a residency to follow you here. She built an entire business in the shadow of yours and never once asked you to make yourself smaller so she could feel bigger, and she defended you. To me, to our mother, to every person who ever said Rhodes Calloway married a florist and forgot to bring her along. For eleven years she wanted nothing from you but you.”
Every word lands somewhere I can’t defend.
“And you let a magazine call another woman your partner. You let a whole ballroom believe it. You stood on a stage in a building she helped you open and you didn’t say her name.
” Her voice cracks, and that’s worse than the coldness, because underneath the fury she loves my wife the way I was supposed to.
“She’s not leaving because she stopped loving you, Rhodes.
She’s leaving because she finally believes you when you show her who you are. ”
I don’t have an answer. She doesn’t wait for one.
“Text only,” she says at the door. “Unless it’s actually important.”
And then she’s gone.
My PR team wants to schedule a press appearance.
“The affair rumors aren’t going away,” Vanessa explains, pulling up slides on her tablet like we’re in a meeting instead of discussing the corpse of my marriage. “We need to address them directly. Put you in front of cameras, deny everything clearly, and pivot to the company’s successes.”
“Fine.”
“We’re suggesting Rachel join you.”
I look up. “What?”
“It neutralizes the narrative.” Vanessa swipes to the next slide, a mockup of the two of us at a podium, looking professional and platonic. “If you’re hiding an affair, you don’t parade your mistress in front of cameras. Having her there makes a statement.”
“And Maren?”
“We keep her out of it entirely. No mention, no questions. The focus is the business, the partnership, the unfounded rumors. Your marriage is private.”
Something in my chest resists. Keeping Maren out of it sounds like keeping her at arm’s length, like she’s not part of this at all. But Vanessa’s right, mentioning her just feeds the story. The best thing I can do is let it die.
“When?”
“Tomorrow. The press briefing. We’ve already confirmed press attendance.”
I nod slowly. “Fine. But no questions about my marriage. That’s a hard line.”
“Understood.”
They leave, and I sit alone in my office, staring at the slides Vanessa emailed me. Rhodes Calloway and Rachel Vaughn, side by side. Denying the affair. Moving forward.
My wife is collecting photo albums from our house, and I’m going to stand in front of cameras with another woman and tell the world everything is fine.
She’ll come home, I told Julian.
I’m starting to wonder if I believe it.
The press briefing goes exactly as planned, which means it goes horribly wrong.
I’m at the podium in The Sinclair’s event space, Rachel beside me in a navy dress that probably cost more than most people’s monthly rent. The room is full of reporters, cameras, the hungry energy of people waiting for me to make a mistake.
I don’t give them one.
“Rachel Vaughn has been with the company for ten years,” I say, reading from the prepared remarks. “She’s been instrumental in our growth and our success. The rumors about our relationship are completely unfounded.”
A reporter in the front row raises her hand. “Mr. Calloway, your wife wasn’t seen at the anniversary gala after your speech. Can you comment on-”
“My marriage is private,” I cut in. “I’m not discussing it today.”
“But the footage-”
“Next question.”
The briefing continues. Numbers, new projects, the usual theater. Rachel stands beside me, calm and composed, occasionally stepping in to answer financial questions. Everything is going fine.
And then someone asks about Rachel.
“Ms. Vaughn, how do you respond to critics who say your position at the company is based on your personal relationship with Mr. Calloway rather than your qualifications?”
Rachel’s expression flickers, just for a second, just enough for me to see the frustration beneath her professional mask. She opens her mouth to respond, but I step in.
“Rachel has been beside me through some of the most difficult years of this company.” The words come out before I can think them through. “I’m not going to punish her because my marriage is having problems.”
The room goes still.
I realize, too late, what I’ve said. What it sounds like.
I’m not going to punish her because my marriage is having problems.
Like Rachel is blameless and Maren is the problem, like my wife is the one causing difficulties while Rachel stands loyally by my side. Like-
“Thank you, that’s all for today.” Vanessa materializes at the edge of the podium, cutting off questions. “Mr. Calloway and Ms. Vaughn have prior commitments.”