9. Kai
— ? —
Kai
I don’t sleep.
I spend the night on the edge of our bed, which feels cavernous without her in it, staring at the wall while the sky outside shifts from black to charcoal to deep purple to the first pale gray of dawn.
My clothes are still on, wrinkled and stale from yesterday, and I haven’t moved except to check my phone every few minutes, hoping for a message that never comes.
The look on her face when she turned around in that driveway keeps playing behind my eyes like a film I can’t stop watching, the champagne silk gown catching the light, the trophy clutched against her chest, her expression shifting from hope to confusion to what looked like the death of a thing she’d been guarding, and then the sound of that lock clicking into place.
I keep replaying the night, trying to find the moment where I could have done anything different, the moment I could have checked my phone or looked at my watch or said no to Isabella and her emergency.
But I didn’t. I stayed, and I talked, and I convinced myself that one more hour wouldn’t matter, that I’d slip into the ceremony just in time for her category, that she’d never even know I was late, and when I finally looked at my phone it was dead, and I told her that in the driveway like it was the reason and not the excuse, and now she’s locked in the guest room and I’m sitting alone in the dark and I don’t know how to fix this.
By dawn I’ve given up on pretending I might sleep and dragged myself downstairs to the kitchen, where the marble counters gleam in the early light, pristine because we pay people to keep it that way, and I move through the space on autopilot, pulling ingredients from the refrigerator for French toast, her favorite.
My grandmother taught me how to make it when I was twelve, standing in her kitchen with flour on my nose and a whisk in my hand, and I haven’t made it in years, but my hands remember the motions, cracking eggs into a bowl, adding vanilla and cinnamon and a splash of milk, whisking until it all blends golden and smooth.
The bread sizzles when it hits the hot pan, and I stand there watching it cook, adjusting the heat, flipping each piece at exactly the right moment for the texture my grandmother insisted on, soft inside with just a hint of crispness outside.
When it’s done I arrange it on a plate with fresh berries, add a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee, set it all on a tray with the good china we never use, and snip a white rose from the garden myself with the kitchen shears, and I carry the whole thing upstairs to the guest room door, which is closed and silent and giving nothing away.
I knock softly.
“Erika?” My voice comes out hoarse, scraped raw from the night. “I made breakfast.”
The silence stretches out long enough that I start to wonder if she’s even in there, if she slipped out while I was cooking and I’m standing here talking to empty air, and then footsteps, soft against the carpet, and the click of the lock, and the door opens just wide enough for her to look out at me.
Her hair is tangled from sleep she probably didn’t get, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen, and she’s still wearing the champagne gown, wrinkled now from a night spent lying on top of the covers, and she looks exhausted and beautiful and completely unreachable.
She looks at the tray, then at me, and her face is perfectly composed, a blank wall where there used to be warmth.
“Thank you,” she says.
And closes the door.
I stand there holding the tray, staring at the wood grain like it might offer an answer, for longer than I should, while the coffee gets cold and the French toast gets soggy and the rose starts to droop. Finally I bend down and set the tray on the floor outside her door and walk away.
An hour later I come back to check, and the tray is still there, untouched, a skin forming on the coffee, the French toast congealed, two petals dropped from the rose onto the plate. She hasn’t even opened the door.
My second attempt takes more planning.
Harry Winston doesn’t open until ten, but I’ve spent enough money there over the past four years that when I call at nine, someone answers.
I describe what I want, diamonds and sapphires, elegant, expensive enough to show I understand the magnitude of what I’ve done, and the woman on the other end of the line doesn’t even hesitate before promising to have their best pieces selected and delivered by eleven.
I spend the time between the call and the delivery pacing the house, checking my phone, checking the guest room door, listening for any sign that Erika might emerge, and the house is too quiet, every creak of the floorboards sounding like an accusation.
The personal shopper arrives at exactly eleven, a discreet woman in an immaculate suit carrying a leather case with a combination lock, and she lays out three options on the dining room table, each one nestled in velvet, and walks me through them with a professional detachment that suggests she’s seen a lot of men trying to buy their way out of trouble.
I choose the most expensive one, a bracelet that glitters with more diamonds than I can count, interspersed with sapphires the exact color of the deep ocean, set in platinum that catches the light from the dining room chandelier, and I don’t ask the price.
It’s not enough, I know it’s not enough, and I buy it anyway.
I wait until I hear the shower running in the guest bathroom, then slip into the room and leave the velvet box on the pillow she hasn’t slept on, because the bed is still made from yesterday, she hasn’t even turned down the covers, and I try not to think about what that means as I retreat to the hallway to wait.
Twenty minutes later she emerges in a robe, her hair still damp, and I watch from the doorway as she notices the box, picks it up, opens it, looks at the bracelet inside, diamonds and sapphires catching the light and throwing tiny rainbows across her face, and her expression doesn’t change.
“Is this supposed to fix something?”
Her voice is calm and measured, completely devoid of the anger from last night, and that’s worse. Anger I could work with, anger means she still cares enough to feel it, but this flat, careful politeness is like talking to a stranger.
“I wanted you to have something beautiful.”
“I wanted my husband at my ceremony.” She closes the box with a soft click and sets it on the dresser without putting the bracelet on. “A bracelet doesn’t fix that.”
“I know it doesn’t. I know nothing I buy you is going to make up for what I did. But I’m out of other ideas, Erika, I’m trying to show you…”
“Thank you for the thought.”
She walks past me into the hallway, and I catch a whiff of her shampoo, floral and familiar, and it makes my chest ache.
I want to reach for her, pull her into my arms and hold her until she softens, until she remembers that she loves me, but I know that would only make things worse, so I let her go, and I start planning my third attempt.
She moves through the house like a ghost for the rest of the morning, present but not really there.
When I come into a room she finds a reason to leave it, and when I try to start a conversation she responds in monosyllables that end the exchange before it can begin, and she thanks me for things in a voice that sounds like she’s addressing a hotel concierge, polite and impersonal, and every word feels like another nail in a coffin I’m building with my own hands.
Her coldness terrifies me more than her anger did, because the anger made sense, but this careful distance, this deliberate absence of feeling, is what giving up looks like.
The car takes more time to arrange.
I start making calls before noon, tracking down leads, pulling strings, calling in favors I’ve been saving for years, a collector in Arizona who specializes in vintage muscle cars, a restoration shop in Pasadena that usually has a six-month waiting list but might be persuaded to expedite for the right price, a transport company that moves vehicles worth more than houses, all of it for a 1965 Mustang, cherry red.
She mentioned it once, two years ago, at a car show we attended for some charity event I can’t even remember anymore.
She’d stopped in front of a restored classic, run her hand along the curves like she was greeting an old friend, and told me about her father, how he’d had one just like it when she was a kid, how he used to let her sit in the driver’s seat and pretend to steer while he made engine noises, how the day he left was the day he sold it, like he was selling off their whole life one piece at a time.
I remember thinking I should buy her one, making a mental note, telling myself I’d track one down for her birthday or our anniversary or some other occasion that would make the gesture meaningful, and I never did.
But I’m doing it now, throwing money at the problem the way I always throw money at problems, because money is the one thing I have in abundance and the one thing that’s never been enough.
The collector wants three times what the car is worth, and I pay it without blinking.
The restoration shop wants a rush fee that would make most people’s eyes water, and I authorize the transfer before the man finishes quoting the price.
The transport company wants to schedule delivery for next week, and I triple their rate to have it here before dark.
The car arrives late that afternoon, gleaming cherry red in the driveway with a giant bow on the hood like a commercial, and it’s beautiful, exactly like the one from her memory, and I stand at the window watching the delivery truck pull away and feeling what might be hope.
She finds it when she emerges from the guest room in the late afternoon, dressed in jeans and a sweater for the first time since the ceremony, looking like she’s planning to go somewhere, and she stops at the top of the porch steps and looks at the car, at the bow, at the impossible gift waiting for her in the driveway.
I hold my breath. She looks at it for a long time, her expression unreadable, and then she walks past it to the garage, gets in her own car, and drives away.
“Erika, wait…”
But she’s already gone, taillights disappearing around the corner, and I’m left standing on the porch with a hundred-thousand-dollar apology that she wouldn’t even touch.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I pull it out and look at the screen, and it’s work, urgent, probably, a call that a week ago would have sent me running to the office without a second thought, and I silence it, and the ugly thing is that for one second I wanted it to be worth taking, because at least at work I know what I feel.
Standing in this driveway I don’t. I’ve been telling myself for months that what’s between us is fine, just tired, just waiting until Dad’s block was done, and now she’s gone quiet on me and I reach for the feeling I’m supposed to have and I can’t find the edges of it.
I don’t know if that’s because it’s gone or because I’ve been numb so long I’ve forgotten what it feels like to have it. I don’t want to know which.
The phone buzzes again, and again, and I silence it each time, but I’m already thinking about what it might be, what crisis is unfolding without me, what I might be missing by standing here instead of being where I’m needed, and I hate myself for thinking it.
She comes back at dusk without a word, and I hear the guest room door close, and I don’t ask where she went, because I’ve lost the right to ask her where she goes.
Dora calls that evening.
My grandmother has never believed in pleasantries or small talk, so when I answer the phone she launches straight in.
“Sunday lunch. Both of you. Noon. No excuses.”
“Grandma, it’s really not a good time…”
“I don’t care if it’s a good time.” Her voice is iron wrapped in silk, the voice that raised me after my parents died. “I can hear it in your voice, Kai. Whatever’s wrong, you’ll fix it faster with my pot roast in your stomach. Sunday. Noon. Don’t be late.”
She hangs up before I can argue.
I stare at my phone, then go upstairs to find Erika.
She’s in the guest room, sitting on the bed with her laptop open, typing, working on her book, probably, or answering emails from her new agent, or doing any of the thousand things that make up the life she’s been building while I wasn’t paying attention.
The door is open, which feels like progress, so I knock on the frame and wait.
She looks up eventually. “Yes?”
Her voice is polite and distant, like I’m a delivery person she’s never seen before.
“Dora wants us for Sunday lunch. Both of us.”
“Fine.”
“Erika…”
“I said fine, Kai.” She turns back to her laptop, dismissing me. “I’ll go because I love Dora and I’m not going to punish her for your mistakes. Don’t mistake that for anything else.”
“I’m not asking for forgiveness.”
“Good.” She keeps typing, not looking at me. “Because I’m not ready to give it.”
I stand in the doorway watching her, this woman I married, this woman who’s slipping away from me one broken promise at a time.
“I’m going to fix this,” I say quietly. “I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to figure it out.”
She doesn’t respond or look up, just keeps typing, her fingers moving across the keyboard like I’m not even there.
I walk away, and downstairs the Mustang is still sitting in the driveway with its ridiculous bow, and my phone buzzes again in my pocket, and I stand at the window with a hundred thousand dollars of apology on one side of the glass and a wife who won’t look at me on the other, and for the first time in my life I have no idea what the next move is.