Chapter 13
THE DISTURBANCE THAT COULD NO LONGER BE IGNORED.
NEW YORK. TWO YEARS LATER…
It was a Tuesday.
Sabine packed a quick lunch, braided Ade’s hair neat, and decided—on a whim—that they’d surprise Adair at work.
He hadn’t been eating like he should lately, always skipping lunch, always claiming he was too busy…
and…she missed him. Genuinely missed him.
Their counselor had encouraged these small moments of presence, and Sabine was trying. God knows she’d been trying.
The firm’s receptionist lit up when she walked in. “He’s in a meeting,” she whispered, smiling at Ade. “But it should be wrapping up.”
Sabine nodded and waited. Held her son’s hand.
Watched him wobble a little on his feet in his tiny sneakers.
When the glass conference room door finally opened, she smiled—wide and full of warmth—as Adair laughed at something one of his partners said, the sound catching in his throat when he saw them.
“Look who came to see me,” he beamed, crossing the lobby to scoop Ade up.
“Brought lunch.” Sabine held up the bag. “Figured you could use a little fuel.”
Adair kissed her cheek and squeezed her waist. It was sweet. Whole. The kind of moment she’d spent years hoping they could return to. The kind of moment that should’ve filled her.
But it was what she saw over his shoulder that stole the moment.
Corrine.
Standing by the elevator. Not leaving. Not working. Just…watching.
It was resentment.
Entitlement.
Like Sabine was the one intruding. Like the sight of Adair with his wife and child was offensive. Like she belonged in that picture instead. Corrine didn’t smile. Didn’t nod. Just turned her head slowly and walked away as if the whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth.
Sabine’s stomach flipped.
The moment passed but it clung to her all day. Even back home, while folding laundry. Even after Ade went down for his nap and the house fell quiet.
That look.
That unspoken claim.
Sabine couldn’t stop seeing it. Couldn’t stop feeling the slow, thick knot return to her gut. The one she thought she’d buried. The one that whispered questions in the back of her mind. She had never felt settled with the story Adair gave her but she accepted it. Not because she believed it—
Because believing anything else would’ve broken her.
Now, two years later, she didn’t feel broken anymore. She felt ready. Ready to ask the question again.
This time, not to be comforted.
This time, to be told the truth.
LATER THAT NIGHT…
Sabine sat curled into the corner of the couch, one hand around a glass of red wine that she hadn’t touched in the last fifteen minutes.
The TV played some show she wasn’t really watching—background noise, like the hum of grief she’d gotten used to living with.
A candle flickered on the coffee table. Pine and amber.
The smell used to calm her. Now it just lingered like a memory she didn’t want but couldn’t get rid of.
Ade was finally asleep. That night’s story had been soft and short—one of the few she could read without cracking.
She’d tucked him in gently, kissed his cheek like she always did, and paused at the door just long enough to hear his breathing even out.
And now she was here. In the stillness. With only herself.
And that’s when it hit her.
All she really knew about that night—the night she gave birth to their daughter and buried every piece of herself along with her—was that Adair’s phone had died.
That he’d said he went out with "the guys."
That was it.
No names. No times.
Just a convenient excuse wrapped in vague reassurance.
And for a while...she accepted it. Or tried to. Because what the hell else could she do? She was in mourning. Bleeding. Empty. And he was her husband. The man she’d built her life with. The man who’d held her while she cried for everything she thought they’d have.
But now, sitting here in the low light with the weight of the wineglass and the silence pressing against her ears, it felt different. Louder. Wrong.
Something in her, that night, had needed more.
More honesty. More effort. More proof that she hadn’t lost her baby and her partner on the same damn day. She deserved more.
And the cruelest part? She never pushed for it. Never interrogated it because asking for the truth meant hearing it and back then, she didn’t think she could survive hearing that kind of truth. Not with stitches still fresh. Not with milk still coming in for a baby that never got to nurse.
But now?
Now she needed to know.
She needed clear concise clarity because every time she looked at him, something in her body tensed. Every time he kissed her goodbye, something in her flinched and if they were ever going to be anything close to whole again…she had to feel safe inside the truth.
Not the lie he made to protect her.
Not the version of the story he trimmed for her comfort.
The truth.
And suddenly, she knew—whatever came of it, they couldn’t go forward until she asked. Until he answered. Until the silence between them finally broke for good.
Because love wasn’t enough.
Not anymore.
The front door clicked open.
Sabine stiffened.
Adair came in with a slow exhale, dropping his keys into the bowl by the door, loosening his tie, same way he always did. His coat came off next. Then his shoes. He looked tired. Beat down. Like life was trying to smother him.
She didn’t care.
“Hey,” he said. She didn’t answer right away. His steps faltered when he noticed the wineglass in her hand. The tension in her shoulders. The look on her face. “You okay?”
Still no answer.
Adair moved closer. “Is Ade down?”
“He’s been asleep since nine,” she said, finally. Adair hovered near the edge of the couch, unsure if he should sit. He didn’t. Just stood there, looking at her like she might shatter if he moved too fast and maybe she would.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
She finally looked up. “That night.”
Adair stiffened knowing exactly which night in question. There would never be another night that could ever be that night.
Sabine’s voice didn’t waver. It was low. Even. Cold.
“The night we lost Ariyah. You told me your phone died…you told me you went out with the guys after work and lost track of time. But something about that night…” She looked down at the wineglass, like maybe it would tell her if she was right.
Adair’s mouth parted. “Bine—”
“Don’t call me that,” she said sharply. “Not right now.” He nodded once. She sat up straighter, placed the wineglass on the end table. “I let it go,” she said. “I stayed in this…even after the worst night of my life, I stayed. For you. For our son. For the family I thought I could still salvage.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t,” her voice cracked, and she clenched her jaw.
“You don’t know what it feels like to hold your daughter in your arms—dead—and still tell yourself to be strong.
You don’t know what it feels like to still protect somebody, lie for somebody just to save face for this fucking marriage.
To save you so no one would think you were the bad guy.
You don’t know what it costs to forgive a man before you even know what he really did.
You don’t’ know what it costs to do all of this while losing a piece of you alone…
you don’t know shit Adair. So…” she rubbed her palms together.
“I’m only going to ask for the truth once.
If in my soul I feel what you say is it, then we can move on, get counseling, whatever because somehow, God won’t let me not love you.
My heart won’t stop aching for you. So please,” she literally begged.
“Tell me I’m crazy and what you told me the night we lost our daughter was the truth… please…”
Adair moved closer now. Sat on the edge of the coffee table across from her.
“I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t add that to everything else…
” he breathed in deep. His mouth opened, but the words didn’t come.
Not right away because he knew. He knew the moment she said it, the moment her voice broke and she begged for truth like it was the only thing tethering her to breath—he knew she already knew.
Sabine stared at him. Unmoving. Unblinking. A woman on the edge of something dangerous. “Tell me I’m crazy,” she whispered. “Tell me what you told me that night was the truth.”
He couldn’t.
With his silence, everything crumbled and she lunged.
Wine glass flung across the room, shattering against the floor, red bleeding into the tile like a crime scene. She was on him before he could even lift his arms. Hitting. Screaming. Gripping his shirt in fists that trembled with years of swallowed pain.
“You bastard! You fucking bastard! You lied to me!” she sobbed, shoving him so hard his back hit the wall. “You fuckin’ lied to me!”
“Bine, stop—please just let me—”
“LET YOU WHAT?” she screamed. “Lie again?”
“Baby you gonna wake up Ade.”
“Were you thinking about him when you were doing God knows the fuck what while I was in the hospital, pregnant and FUCKING ALONE! When they had to pry your son from me because I…” she breathed in a shake breath.
“I HAD NO ONE! I CAME HERE FOR YOU! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!” she banged her fists into his chest.
Adair pulled her tight, locking his arms around her waist until she couldn’t swing anymore. Until she sagged in his grip, body heaving. “Listen to me,” he pleaded. “Please, just let me explain.”
“Go ahead,” Sabine pushed away from, and stood a couple inches away, arms crossed one foot impatiently tapping the floor ready to tee off on his ass again. “Talk!”
“It…it was a kiss,” he admitted, the words falling like bricks between them. “A kiss and...and I stopped it. I swear to you, Sabine, I stopped it. The second it happened, I left. I left and tried to call you, and my phone—”
She screamed. Loud. Guttural. The kind of scream that came from the marrow. “Don’t you dare bring up your phone!”