15. Sabrina
— ? —
Sabrina
I went cold in the days after the voice note, and I made sure he felt it.
His calls went unanswered. His texts went unanswered. When he showed up at the cabin, I let Ivy visit with him on the porch but wouldn’t come outside myself, watching through the window with my arms crossed over my chest and my heart locked up tight.
He didn’t push. That was the infuriating part. He didn’t demand explanations or throw tantrums or try to force his way back in. He just accepted the distance I put between us and kept showing up anyway, a persistent presence at the edges of my life.
The voice notes continued.
He never asked me to reply to any of them. He just left them there for me to find or not find, and I kept not deleting them, which felt like its own kind of surrender.
***
Then the rumor reached me, and it didn’t come from a phone.
Tessa let herself into the cabin on a gray afternoon without knocking, dropped a bag of groceries on the counter, and said, “I need to tell you something before you hear it from someone worse than me.”
“That’s an alarming way to start a conversation.”
“Cordelia’s been talking.” She pulled out a chair and sat, which meant it was bad, because Tessa delivered small news standing up.
“At the club. At the coffee place. To anyone who’ll hold still.
She’s telling people you left Killian, that the marriage was dead long before this summer, that he’s only playing house for Ivy’s sake and everyone knows it.
She says it all soft and sad, like she’s worried about him.
Like she’s the one who really understands what he needs. ”
The kitchen went very quiet.
“And people are believing her?”
“Some of them. She’s good at it, Sabrina. She’s known these people her whole life and you’re the outsider who married in. Mrs. Aldrich asked me at the farmstand this morning whether it was true you’d already hired a lawyer. It’s a small island. The story travels faster than the truth does.”
I gripped the edge of the counter. It was one thing for Cordelia to plant a smoothie and smile at me across a café.
It was another to feel her hands moving under my life, rearranging how an entire island saw my marriage, turning my private wreckage into her public opportunity.
She wasn’t just circling anymore. She was building a version of events where she was the obvious next chapter, and she was making everyone read it.
“What do I do?” My voice came out smaller than I wanted.
“You don’t give her the reaction she’s fishing for.
” Tessa reached across and squeezed my hand.
“But I wasn’t going to let you walk into the grocery store next week and get blindsided by it.
You should know what she’s saying. And you should know it’s a lie, no matter how many times she says it in that tragic little voice. ”
She stayed an hour and made me eat something, and after she left I sat with it, this new and colder understanding of what Cordelia actually was. Not a ghost from his past who happened to be on the island. A woman with a plan, working it patiently, and I was the only obstacle left standing in it.
***
The longest of the voice notes came a few days after that.
I found it one evening after Ivy was asleep, the notification glowing on my phone screen. It sat there for two days before I touched it.
Then Ivy went down early and the cabin got too quiet, and I wanted the sound of his voice badly enough to hate myself for it.
I played it.
“I’ve been thinking about what went wrong,” he started, his voice quiet and serious. “Not in a vague, general way. Specifically. Concretely. Every single moment where I chose wrong, where I let you down, where I could have been better and wasn’t.”
I sat down on the couch and tucked my feet under me.
“There was your presentation at the university, right after we got married. The one about your research into signal harmonics. You’d been working on it for weeks, and you asked me to come. I said I would. And then the lab had a crisis, and I stayed, and I told myself you’d understand.”
His voice cracked slightly.
“You never mentioned it again. But I remember your face when I got home that night. You weren’t angry. You just looked… resigned. Like you’d expected me to let you down. That was the first time I saw that expression, and I should have known then that I was headed somewhere dangerous. But I didn’t.”
He didn’t rush. He stayed on that one night at the university a long time, turning it over, before he let himself move on to the next thing he’d gotten wrong.
“When you were pregnant with Ivy, you used to leave me notes around the house. Little reminders about doctor’s appointments or cravings you were having or just silly things you wanted me to know.
I saved every single one of them. I have a box in my office with all of them, and sometimes I take them out and read them, and I remember what it felt like when you still believed I’d be there. ”
I was crying now, silent tears sliding down my cheeks.
“The miscarriage broke something in both of us. I know that. But instead of breaking together, we broke apart. I threw myself into work because it was easier than facing the grief, easier than watching you hurt and knowing I couldn’t fix it.
I told myself I was giving you space, but the truth is I was hiding.
I was a coward, and you paid the price for it. ”
He took a breath. I could hear him steadying himself, pushing through.
“I’m going to start therapy. Real therapy, not the kind where I show up once and then make excuses.
I’ve already made an appointment with someone who specializes in ADHD and grief, and I’m going to do the work.
The medication adjustments, the behavioral strategies, all of it.
Not because I think it’ll win you back, but because I should have done it years ago.
Because I’ve been self-medicating with work and achievement and I need to stop. ”
The voice note went on, a detailed accounting of his failures and the specific steps he was taking to address them. It was methodical, almost clinical, the same systematic approach he applied to everything. But underneath the precision was a rawness, a vulnerability I’d rarely heard from him.
“I know this doesn’t fix anything,” he said finally. “I know words are easy and action is hard. But I wanted you to know that I see it. I see what I did. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it right, whether you’re there to witness it or not.”
The recording ended.
I curled up on the couch and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore, the phone gone dark in my hand.
***
He cornered me a few days later at the grocery store.
I was in the produce section, squeezing avocados with probably too much aggression, when I felt someone fall into step beside me.
“Those avocados didn’t do anything to you.”
I didn’t look up. “Go away, Killian.”
“I can’t. You’re blocking the tomatoes.”
“Then go around.”
“I don’t want to go around. I want to talk to you.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I know. That’s why I’m ambushing you in produce. It’s the only way I can get you to stand still long enough.”
I finally looked at him. He looked tired, dark circles under his eyes, his hair not quite as carefully arranged as usual. But his gaze was steady, determined in that way he got when he’d locked onto a problem and refused to let go.
“I heard your voice note,” I said.
“All of it?”
“Twice, actually.”
“And?”
“And it was very thorough. Very systematic. Very you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, it’s not.” I put the avocado down and crossed my arms. “You want an answer? Fine. Here’s an answer. Cordelia is around you all the time.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Cordelia. Your ex. The one who ordered your smoothie and showed up in every voice note and seems to find you no matter where you are. She’s everywhere, Killian. Every time I start to think maybe I can trust you again, she appears.”
“I’m not seeing Cordelia.”
“Then why is she always there? Why was she looking for you when you sent me that message? Why does she order your weird health drink and tell people you’re meeting her?”
“I don’t know!” His voice rose, and a woman by the lettuce shot us a curious look.
He lowered it again, stepping closer. “I don’t know why she’s doing any of that.
I haven’t invited her anywhere. I haven’t talked to her beyond basic pleasantries when she corners me in public.
She’s playing some kind of game, and I don’t know the rules, but I swear to you, Sabrina, there’s nothing between us. ”
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
“I’ll pay her to leave the island.”
“What?”
“I’ll write her a check right now. Whatever it takes to make her go away. I’ll chain myself to the cabin so you always know where I am. I’ll hire a private investigator to follow me around and send you daily reports. Whatever you need, whatever will make you trust me, I’ll do it.”
“That’s insane.”
“I’m an insane person. You knew this when you married me.”
Despite myself, I felt the corner of my mouth twitch. He saw it and pressed his advantage, stepping even closer.
“I’m not interested in Cordelia. I’m not interested in anyone except you. You’re the only woman I’ve wanted since the night we met, and that’s not going to change just because our marriage is falling apart.”
“We’re not falling apart. We’re already apart.”
“Then we’ll put it back together. Piece by piece, if we have to.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I know it’s not. But I’m willing to do the work. Are you?”
I stared at him, this infuriating, brilliant, impossible man who had broken my heart and was trying so desperately to fix it. The anger hadn’t gone anywhere. But underneath it, stubborn and unwanted, was the love I’d never managed to kill.
“I do love seeing you jealous, though,” he said softly, and his eyes crinkled at the corners with a hint of his old humor.
“I’m not jealous.”
“You’re definitely jealous.”
“I’m concerned. There’s a difference.”