22. Harry
— ? —
Harry
Soren arrives at nine with his equipment bag and that easy Scandinavian smile that makes me want to put my fist through a wall.
I don’t. I shake his hand and show him to the rehab room and take my position in the doorway with my arms crossed, watching every move he makes.
“Last session,” Soren announces, setting up his table. “How are we feeling?”
“Ready to burn this boot,” Jules says from the padded bench. Her leg is extended in front of her with the walking boot strapped tight. “If I have to wear this thing one more day, I’m going to scream.”
“Then let’s get it off.”
He kneels in front of her. His hands work the straps with practiced efficiency, loosening each one and sliding the boot free. I watch his fingers brush her calf as he sets it aside.
“Okay.” He stands and offers her his hands. “Let’s see you stand.”
She takes them and pushes herself up. Her bare foot touches the floor and she winces, shifting her weight carefully.
“Easy,” Soren says. “Take your time.”
She tests it and presses down. Her face is tight with concentration, but she’s standing on her own, without the boot.
“How does it feel?” I ask.
“Weird. Weak.” She shifts her weight back and forth between her feet. “But not painful.”
“Good.” Soren moves to the parallel bars against the wall. “Let’s try walking. Use the bars for support.”
I watch her cross the room one step at a time, with her hands gripping the bars and her jaw set. She’s unsteady at first, favoring the leg, but with each pass she gets stronger and more confident.
By the end of the hour she’s walking the length of the room without the bars. She’s slow and careful, but she’s walking, with no boot and no crutches, just her.
Pride swells in my chest, fierce and overwhelming. She fought for this, through every painful session and every frustrating setback and every morning when she wanted to give up and didn’t. She clawed her way back.
And now she can leave.
The thought sits heavy in my stomach.
“You’re doing great,” Soren says, packing up his equipment. “Keep up with the exercises I showed you, and you should be back to full strength in a few weeks.”
“Thank you.” Jules shakes his hand. “For everything.”
Soren doesn’t let go of her hand right away.
“Can I say one thing, and you can tell me to get lost?” He keeps his voice low, but this room isn’t big, and I hear every word.
“I’m not blind. I’ve been in this house every day for more than five weeks, and I know it’s complicated here.
But you’re not my patient after today. If it ever stops being complicated, I’d really like to take you to dinner. ”
Every muscle in my body locks.
I wait for her to laugh it off. I wait for her to tell him she’s married, or even just to say no.
“That’s a very nice offer, Soren,” Jules says, and she doesn’t say no. She doesn’t look at me, either. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
Then Soren opens his arms and pulls her into a hug.
I count every second. On one, his hands are on her back. On two, her arms are around his shoulders. On three, his chin is near her hair. Four comes, and then five, and they’re still standing there. Then they finally break apart, and I’m across the room before I realize I’ve moved.
“Mr. Winslow.” Soren extends his hand.
I take it and squeeze harder than necessary. “The bonus will be in your account by end of day.”
“That’s generous, but not…”
“It’s for never coming back.”
He blinks, looks at my face, and decides not to laugh.
“Right,” he says slowly. “Well. Take care, both of you.”
He leaves, and I hear the front door close behind him, hopefully for the last time.
Jules is still standing in the middle of the rehab room, testing her balance with her bare feet on the mat. There’s no boot and no crutches, and nothing holding her here.
Underneath the pride, and underneath the relief that she’s healed, I’m sick with dread. This is the deadline she set. This is the day she said she’d walk out, and now I know there’s a decent man out there waiting to see if she does.
“I need to make a call,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. “Hazel was supposed to let me know about Avery.”
“Okay.”
I step into the hallway and pull out my phone. Hazel answers on the second ring.
“She came by the home this morning,” she says without preamble. “She’s been told to stay away from you two. She says doors are already closing on her all over the city, and she’s lost her apartment.”
“Where is she now?”
“On a bus. She sold her car on Wednesday to cover what she owed on the apartment. She left about an hour ago.” There’s a pause.
“I told her no, Harry. For the first time in her life, I told her she couldn’t stay here.
She couldn’t use the home as a refuge, and she couldn’t pretend nothing had happened. ”
“Good.”
“I don’t know where the bus was headed. I didn’t ask.”
I don’t care where it was headed. I just care that she’s gone.
“How are you?” Hazel asks.
“Fine.”
“And Jules?”
“She just got her boot off.”
“That’s wonderful.” She pauses again. “Take care of yourself, Harry.”
“I will.”
I hang up and stand in the hallway for a moment, taking it in.
Avery is gone, really gone, on a bus out of our lives and out of our city. She can’t come near us, and no one here will hire her. She has nothing and no one.
I should feel guilt, maybe, or loss, or satisfaction. All I feel is relief.
I walk back toward the rehab room and stop in the doorway.
Jules isn’t there.
I head down the hall to the guest room. The door is open, the way it always is.
She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, and her suitcase is open beside her on the mattress.
It’s empty, and my chest goes tight anyway.
“I took it out this morning,” she says without looking up. “Before Soren came. I was going to pack.”
I don’t move and I don’t speak, and I barely breathe.
“I sat here for half an hour.” Her voice is quiet. “Trying to figure out what to put in it, and what to take with me, and where I’d go.”
The doorframe is solid under my hands. I grip it hard enough to feel the wood bite into my palms.
“Jules…”
“Let me finish.”
I shut my mouth.
She’s still staring at the empty suitcase, with her hands folded in her lap and her fingers twisted together.
“I kept picking things up and putting them down,” she continues. “The Kindle. Pickle. My face cream. And every time I tried to put one of them in the suitcase, I couldn’t.”
She looks up at me.
Her eyes are dry. She’s not crying, but she looks fragile and uncertain in a way I almost never see.
“Say what you’re thinking,” she says.
I want to cross the room and pull her into my arms. I want to tell her she’s not going anywhere, that I won’t let her, that leaving is not on the table and never will be.
But I said that before. I said it in my office on the day of the ultimatum, when I backed her against my desk and told her leaving wasn’t an option. I made it about what I wanted and what I needed and what I couldn’t survive.
And then she almost died in a fire while I stood outside with the woman who’d been wrecking our marriage for years.
I can’t do that again. I can’t make this about me.
My hands aren’t steady, and I grip the doorframe harder to hide it.
“I’ll carry the bag to the car,” I say.
She blinks.
“If that’s what you want.” My voice comes out rough and scraped raw. “I’ll carry the bag to the car myself. I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go. The airport, if you want your sister. A hotel, another city, wherever you want.”
She’s staring at me.
“And then I’ll be on the doorstep.” I have to force the words out. “Every day, until you tell me to stop. Until you look me in the eye and tell me you’re done, really done, and you want me gone.”
“Harry…”
“I won’t beg you to stay.” I have to stop and breathe and start again. “I won’t guilt you. I won’t make this about what I need or what I can’t live without. If you want to leave, I’ll help you leave. I’ll make it easy. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
She’s still staring, not moving and not speaking.
“But I need you to know that if you go, I’m not giving up. I’m not going to pretend this is over just because you’re not under my roof anymore. I’ll be wherever you are, for as long as it takes, until you either take me back or tell me there’s no chance.”
The silence stretches between us.
I’ve never been this terrified in my life.
I wasn’t this scared as a kid with nothing, or when I was building the company and betting everything on deals that could have destroyed me.
I’ve sat across from men who could have ended my company with a phone call, and my hands were steadier than this.
This is worse, because this time the choice isn’t mine.
“You’d really do that?” she asks finally. “Drive me anywhere, let me go, and then just show up?”
“Every day.”
“Even if I told you I didn’t want to see you?”
“I’d stay outside. I wouldn’t push. But I’d be there.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“I don’t care.”
“It sounds a little stalker-ish.”
“I’d keep my distance. I’d just be visible, so you’d know.”
“Know what?”
“That I’m not going anywhere. That I’m going to be there, waiting, for as long as it takes.”
“That’s a lot of doorstep sitting.”
“I’ve got time.”
“Your number two would have a heart attack.”
“Let him.”
“Your meetings.”
“Canceled. All of them. Indefinitely.”
The corner of her mouth twitches, very faintly.
“You’re serious,” she says.
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.”
She stands up slowly and carefully, testing her newly freed leg. I want to reach for her and steady her, but I make myself stay in the doorway.
She picks up the suitcase, closes it, and sets it on the floor beside the bed.
Then she walks toward me.
She takes one step, and then two, and then three. Her gait is uneven and she’s still favoring the stronger leg, but she’s walking on her own, without help.
She stops in front of me, close enough to touch.
“You’re in my way,” she says.
I step aside.
She walks past me and down the hallway, toward the front door.
My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. She’s leaving. She’s actually leaving. She’s going to walk out that door, and I’m going to have to watch her go and then figure out where she’s gone so I can park myself outside it.
She opens the front door, steps through it, and closes it behind her.
I stare at the door, at the wood and the brass handle and the small window at the top that shows nothing but a square of sky.
The doorbell rings.
I don’t understand.
The doorbell rings again.
I reach for the handle and pull the door open.
Jules is standing on the porch, smiling, having walked out of this house on her own two feet.
She holds out her hand.
“Jules Rivers,” she says.
The maiden name hits me deep in my chest. It’s a reminder of who she was before me, and who she could be again if she wanted.
I take her hand anyway.
“Harry,” I say.
“Nice to meet you, Harry.” Her fingers curl around mine. “Can I take you to dinner?”
I stare at this woman I’ve known for three years, been married to for two, and almost lost in a fire. She’s standing on my porch in bare feet, holding out her hand as if we’re strangers meeting for the first time.
“I should be the one asking you,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because I’m the one with everything to prove.”
She considers this. “I’ll allow it.”
“Jules Rivers.” I don’t let go of her hand. “Can I take you to dinner?”
Her smile widens. It’s the smile I fell in love with, the one that makes me feel I could do anything as long as she’s looking at me that way.
“You’re the second man to ask me that today,” she says. “You’re the first one I’m saying yes to. Pick me up at 6:15. Don’t be late.”