2. Izzy #2
I put them in water. I told myself the work was for us. I told myself he was building an empire, that sacrifices had to be made, that my loneliness was temporary. A phase. A stretch we’d get through on our way to a better life.
He sent peonies after our sixth anniversary too, when he was in Singapore for a board meeting that couldn’t wait. Different card, same handwriting.
I’ll make it up to you. I swear. W
I put those in water too. I arranged them on the dining room table and took a picture and texted it to him with a heart emoji, because I wanted him to know I understood.
I wanted him to know I wasn’t angry. I wanted him to know I was a wife who supported her husband’s dreams without complaint, without demands, without needing anything as selfish as his actual presence.
Stupid.
So stupid.
How many times did I forgive him because he sent the right flowers?
I set the vase down on the kitchen counter and stare at the blooms. They really are beautiful. Whoever ordered them, probably his assistant, the same woman who’s been buying my apology gifts for years, has excellent taste.
I pick up the vase and turn it over. Water and flowers spill into the sink in a rush of pink and white and green, and the peonies land in a wet heap on the marble, already starting to wilt. I watch them for a moment. Then I turn away.
The champagne bottle is still on the table, half full, condensation running down its sides. I carry it to the sink and pour it out slowly, watching the pale gold liquid spiral down the drain.
I’m done raising glasses to a man who doesn’t show up.
The suitcase is in the bedroom closet. The same Louis Vuitton set Wilson bought me for our third anniversary.
So you can travel in style, he said when he gave it to me, and I didn’t point out that I never traveled anywhere without him and he was never available to go. I pull the largest case out and lay it open on the bed.
The packing happens without conscious thought. Seven years of being married to Wilson has taught me how to pack efficiently, how to organize my belongings for quick departures, how to leave a place without leaving evidence I was ever there.
The red dress comes off.
I stand in my underwear for a moment, looking down at the silk pooled at my feet, remembering how hopeful I was when I put it on. How certain I was that this time would be different. I shove it into the suitcase without folding it.
Jeans. A cashmere sweater that costs more than my first month’s rent back in Brooklyn. Flats because I don’t have the energy for stilettos right now.
I move through the villa gathering my things, and the silk robe still in its tissue paper stops me for a second. Another gift from Wilson. Another apology for a night he couldn’t be bothered to show up for.
The lingerie drawer makes me stop too.
I packed three sets for this trip. Lace and silk in champagne, blush, and deep burgundy. The tags are still attached to all of them, three hundred dollars each, bought specifically for this anniversary, for the romantic reunion I’d convinced myself we were going to have.
I thought if I looked beautiful enough, he’d remember why he married me.
I thought if I tried harder, he’d see me again.
I thought a lot of things.
I shove all three sets into the suitcase without looking at them.
My phone rings from the bedroom.
I freeze with a shoe in my hand. My heart kicks once, twice, so hard I can feel it in my throat.
The screen glows from the mattress where I left it.
WILSON
Don’t answer.
Make him wait.
Make him feel what it’s like to reach for someone who isn’t there.
I cross to the bed and answer before I can stop myself.
Seven years and I’ve never once let him go to voicemail. That’s my problem too.
“Izzy.” His voice is frantic and too loud, and my chest cracks at the sound of it. “Izzy, thank God. I just got out of that room. Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay.”
I sit down on the edge of the mattress. The bed that cost more than our first apartment, in the villa that costs more than a house, on the island I flew to alone because my husband had a meeting he couldn’t leave.
“I’m here.” It comes out flat and empty.
“I can explain everything. I need you to listen to me, okay? Really listen.” He’s talking too fast, afraid I’ll hang up before he can finish.
“Sabrina Burnham is Richard Burnham’s daughter.
You know Richard, the investor I’ve been courting for almost a year.
He doesn’t trust anyone outside his family, so Sabrina has been in every meeting. ”
“I know who she is.” I pick at a thread on the cashmere sweater. “I’ve met her twice.”
“Then you know this is nothing. She’s twenty-three years old, Izzy. She’s a kid.”
She’s twenty-three.
Smooth skin. Shiny hair. A future that hasn’t disappointed her yet.
I’m thirty-one and I can’t remember the last time my husband looked at me the way he’s looking at her in that video.
“The embrace you saw wasn’t an embrace.” Wilson’s voice drops, earnest now, the tone he uses when he’s closing a deal and needs the other person to trust him.
“The meeting was tense. Richard’s Tokyo partners were shouting over each other about a clause, and Sabrina speaks Japanese.
She leaned in to translate what their counsel was saying directly into my ear so I could answer before the whole thing fell apart. ”
“And the kiss?”
“She kissed my cheek. She went to boarding school in Paris, Izzy, she kisses everyone hello and goodbye. It means nothing.”
“It didn’t look like your cheek.”
“Because some idiot intern filmed it through a window from a hundred feet away and sold the worst possible angle to a tabloid.” He’s getting frustrated now.
“If you could see the security footage from inside the room, you’d see Richard standing ten feet away the entire time.
You’d see six other people at the table.
You’d see me looking at my watch every five minutes because I was supposed to be on a plane to you. ”
Supposed to be.
Supposed to be on a plane. He wasn’t.
“Wilson.” I stop picking at the thread and flatten my palm against my thigh. “Did you make it back for dinner?”
Silence.
The ocean moves under the villa. I wait.
“Did you make the flight?” I ask again, even though I already know. Even though I knew the moment I woke up alone in this villa with the candles burned to nothing and the champagne going flat.
“The meeting went long.” His voice has changed. Defensive now, careful. “Richard wanted to go over the final terms one more time and I couldn’t just walk out when we were so close to…”
“Yes or no. Did you get on the plane?”
More silence. I can hear him breathing, hear the distant sound of a city that isn’t mine through the phone.
“No.” He exhales the word. “But Izzy, I was going to take the first flight out this morning. I already had my assistant rebook everything. I was going to wake up and come straight to you.”
“It’s 5 AM.” I look at the clock on the wall. “Here, anyway. What time is it in Tokyo?”
“Izzy, don’t do this…”
“It’s nine in the morning there. You’ve been up for hours dealing with it, and you’re just now calling me.”
“I was dealing with the fallout. The video leaked and I had to do damage control, talk to the lawyers, figure out how to contain this before it destroyed the deal we’ve been working on for…”
“The deal.” My laugh comes out cracked. “The deal. Of course.”
“You’re not being fair.”
“I’m not being fair?” I stand up from the bed because I can’t sit still anymore and I don’t know if I’m furious or heartbroken. Maybe both.
“I flew to this island alone. I sat at that table for five hours in a dress I bought specifically because you said you loved the way I looked in red.”
I start pacing without meaning to.
“I called you six times. I watched the candles burn down to nothing. I said happy anniversary to an empty chair, Wilson. I said it out loud to no one because you weren’t there to hear it.”
“I know. I know, and I’m sorry…”
“And then I found out why you weren’t there by watching a video of you with your arms around another woman.
” My voice is rising and I can’t stop it.
“I found out about my own marriage ending from a hashtag. Do you understand that? A hashtag, Wilson. The oblivious wife. That’s what they’re calling me. ”
“Your marriage isn’t ending.” His voice sharpens. “Nothing happened. I explained what happened. Why the hell won’t you listen to me?”
“My marriage?” I stop pacing and stare at the phone in my hand. “MY marriage? It’s our marriage, Wilson. Ours. And it is falling apart. It’s been falling apart for years and you weren’t even here to notice.”
“Izzy, that’s not…”
“Because you’re missing the point!” I’m shouting now, pacing again, my bare feet cold against the marble. “The video could be completely innocent. Sabrina could be exactly what you say she is. None of that changes the fact that you weren’t on the plane.”
“The meeting ran long…”
“Meetings always run long. Deals always need one more clause. There’s always a bigger fire than showing up for me.”
I stop pacing and press my hand against my chest because my heart is beating too fast.
“I have been waiting for you for seven years. Seven years of dinners alone and holidays alone and falling asleep in an empty bed because you’re always somewhere else doing a job that matters more than I do.”
“That’s not true. Everything I do is for us…”
“You missed my father’s funeral.”
He goes completely quiet.
“You were there the night he died.” My voice has dropped low and gone terrible. “You held my hand in that hospital hallway. And the next morning you flew to Singapore, because the work couldn’t wait.”
I take a shaky breath.
“You sent flowers. You sent your assistant to help me plan the service. But you weren’t there, Wilson. I buried my father alone.”
“Your father barely spoke to me.” His voice is careful now, treading lightly. “You said yourself he never approved of…”