18. Rowan
— ? —
Rowan
I heard it from the hallway. Most of it. Enough.
Lilia’s voice came tinny off the speakerphone and carried, and so did the thing she said that I’m going to be hearing for a long time. He told me he was going to leave her. As soon as the timing was right.
For over a year. While Elise was trying to save the marriage, he’d already packed.
So I did the only useful thing I could think of, which was nothing. I stayed in the hallway and let her come past me without reaching for her, because she told me plainly what she needed and it wasn’t me, and then I stood in the dark listening to her door shut and I made myself leave it shut.
My hands won’t stop shaking. There’s a rage in me with nowhere to go, and the person I want to put it on is four feet away in the kitchen, so I go to him.
***
Simon comes out looking like a man who’s watched his own execution.
“Rowan…”
“Don’t. Don’t say a single word to me right now.”
“I need to explain…”
“Explain what? That you were going to leave her? That you kept two women on the string for a year because you were too much of a coward to choose?” I take a step toward him and he flinches, which tells me everything about how this week has gone for him.
“There’s nothing to explain. You’re exactly who I always thought you were. ”
“That’s not fair…”
“Fair.” The laugh comes out ugly. “You had a wife who’d have done anything to make it work. And you kept your options open.”
“It wasn’t like that…”
“It was exactly like that. Lilia said it herself. You promised her. You told her your marriage was the obstacle.” I’m shaking. “Did you ever love either of them, or were they both just placeholders until something more convenient came along?”
Simon’s jaw tightens. “You watched from the outside for years and you think you understand it.”
“I know you made her feel invisible. I know you let her doubt herself while you were sneaking around. I know you had something extraordinary and you couldn’t see it until it was gone.”
“And you’re better?” His voice sharpens. “You, who watched from the sidelines for years and never said one word?”
It lands like a punch, because it’s true. I watched. I stayed quiet. I let my own fear keep me still while she went under.
“At least I never lied to her,” I say, but the edge has gone out of it.
“No. You just waited for me to wreck it so you could walk in and play the hero.” His smile is bitter. “Don’t pretend you’re some noble rescuer, Rowan. You wanted this. You wanted my marriage to fail.”
“I wanted her to be happy. If that had been with you…”
“Bullshit. You’ve wanted her since the beginning. And now you’ve got her.” He spreads his hands. “Congratulations. Hope it was worth the wait.”
He pushes past me and goes upstairs, and his door slams.
I’m left in the hallway with the thing he said going around in my skull.
You wanted my marriage to fail.
Did I? In the parts of myself I keep the light off in, did I want exactly this?
The honest answer is not one I’m proud of.
***
I don’t sleep.
I lie there listening to the cabin creak and settle around me, and somewhere down the hall she’s processing the newest version of the worst thing that’s ever happened to her, and I’m useless.
That’s the part I can’t get past. I have wanted to be the person who’s good to this woman for five years, and now that it’s finally me in the house with her, there’s nothing to do but wait.
Because I know what’s coming.
Right now her anger is aimed at Simon and Lilia, where it belongs.
But she’s the smartest person I’ve ever met, and eventually she’s going to turn that around and start asking why the man currently in her bed watched her drown for years and said nothing.
And I don’t have a good answer. I have reasons, and reasons aren’t the same thing.
Around three, her door opens.
Footsteps in the hall. Then nothing. She’s outside my door, deciding.
I hold my breath.
The footsteps go back. Her door closes.
Not yet.
***
Morning comes gray.
I’m in the kitchen making coffee I don’t want when I hear her on the stairs, and every muscle in me goes tight.
She looks like she hasn’t slept. Dark under the eyes, hair loose, her face pale and drawn. But it’s the expression that drops my stomach, because it isn’t grief. It’s cold and level, the look of a person who spent the night sharpening something.
“We need to talk,” she says.
“Okay.”
“Not here. Outside.”
I follow her out and down the steps and across the muddy yard to the old bench at the edge of the property, far enough that Simon won’t hear.
She sits. I sit, leaving space.
“Last night was…” I start.
“I don’t want to talk about last night. I want to talk about you.”
Here it is.
“What about me?”
“You knew Simon was cheating.” Her voice is flat. “You watched me fade for years. Wanted to say something and didn’t.” She turns to look at me, and her eyes are hard. “How long did you know?”
I could soften it. Make myself look better.
I’m too tired of lying to bother.
“I suspected about six months before you found out,” I say. “I didn’t have proof. Just the way he was at family dinners. Things he said when he’d had too much.”
“Six months.”
“I told myself I wasn’t sure. That it wasn’t my place to blow up your marriage on a suspicion.”
“And when you were sure?”
“I was never completely sure. Not until you told me what you’d found.” I run a hand through my hair. “I know how that sounds. But I didn’t want to be the man who detonated your life on a guess.”
“But you wanted me.” Her voice sharpens. “You’ve been very clear about that. For years.”
“Yes.”
“So how do I know your silence wasn’t strategic? That you weren’t just waiting for him to implode so you could step in?”
The question cuts, because I spent all night asking it in my own voice.
“Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know what I think anymore.” Her voice cracks and she hauls it back under control.
“I just found out my husband was planning to leave me for a year. That my best friend laughed at me the whole time. That everyone in my life has been lying to me.” She stands and paces away. “Why should you be any different?”
“Because I’m not them.”
“That’s what Simon said too.”
I don’t have anything for that, because she’s right. Words are cheap, and Simon proved it past any argument.
“You’re right to question me,” I say finally.
“Don’t.” Her voice is sharp. “Don’t be reasonable and understanding. Don’t make me feel like I’m being unfair for asking.”
“That’s not what I’m doing…”
“Isn’t it? Because that’s what he did. Every time I confronted him he’d go calm and reasonable and make me feel like I was the problem.” She’s shaking. “I’m not overreacting, Rowan. I’m asking real questions about your history and whether I can trust a word you say.”
“Then ask them.” I stand. “Ask whatever you need. I’ll answer honestly.”
“Fine.” She steps in close. “Did you want my marriage to fail?”
I could give her the answer that makes me look good. She deserves better.
“Part of me did,” I say. “A small, ugly part I’m not proud of. When I’d see you at those dinners looking so lost, part of me hoped he’d keep failing. That you’d leave him. That I’d get another chance.”
Her face goes pale.
“But that’s not the whole of it,” I say. “Most of me just wanted you to be all right. Even if that meant with him. Even if it meant I never got this.”
“How convenient. You wanted both.”
“Most people want both. Most people have things they want that they’re ashamed of.
” I take a breath. “I’m not going to stand here and be a saint who only ever wished you well.
I’m a person who wanted something he couldn’t have.
But I never fed you a single thing designed to make you doubt him.
I watched, and I hated myself for watching, and that’s all I did. ”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. It’s supposed to be true.” I hold her eyes. “You want to know if you can trust me. This is the data. All of it, including the parts that make me look like exactly what my mother says I am. You get to decide what it’s worth.”
She stares at me, weighing every word I just put in her hands.
Then she does the thing I don’t expect.
She grabs my shirt and pulls me toward her.