Chapter 10
Roman
I was standing at the narrow counter in my rented room, waiting for the kettle to boil.
The space had been advertised as a studio, though that suggested an intention the room did not possess.
It held a bed, a table, two chairs, and a kitchen wall short enough that I could reach the refrigerator without taking a full step.
My phone vibrated beside the mug Elise had never seen.
The voicemail notification displayed no name. I played it because the number might have belonged to the clinic, the obstetric office, or one of the contractors covering my Greyford projects while I worked partly remote.
Serena spoke before the room had fully loaded around me.
“If you still care about me, come tell me the truth. Tell me those three weeks weren’t all fake. Tell me at least part of it was real.”
Her voice thinned on the last word.
Then the message ended.
The kettle clicked off. I stood with one hand braced against the counter and looked at the playback button.
Part of me knew exactly how to answer.
I had cared whether she was frightened. I had wanted her pain reduced. I had recognized the food she liked, remembered the route through the hospital garden, and known which old story would make her laugh. Those moments had not come from hatred or indifference.
That was how I had built the lie so efficiently.
I had taken real concern and used it to support a false relationship. Then I had treated the concern as proof the structure deserved to remain standing.
The voicemail showed forty-three seconds.
I did not play it again.
The phone vibrated before I could put it down.
Please. I don’t know what I’m allowed to keep from those three weeks.
The reply field opened under my thumb.
I cared whether you were frightened.
The sentence was true. Sending it would make me the person who decided which parts of the false relationship Serena was allowed to keep. The next question would come to me too.
I deleted the words without sending them.
Then I forwarded the voicemail and the text to Nadia with one sentence.
Serena contacted me from this number. I will not reply directly. Please confirm she has support today.
I sent the same information, without commentary, to the treatment-team address Nadia had given me weeks ago. I included the number, the time, the audio file, and the text.
The phone stayed in my hand while I waited. Every silent second left Serena with the answer she feared most. I wanted to correct that answer. I also knew correction from me would become another form of contact she had to recover from.
Nadia replied six minutes later.
I’m with her. She has an appointment with her therapist this morning. I’ll make sure the team has the new number. Please don’t answer her.
I read the message once.
Serena had asked me to prove that my concern had been real. I blocked the number knowing my silence might feel like proof that it had not been.
The kettle water had cooled enough that the coffee tasted flat. I drank it anyway.
Before leaving for work, I opened the dedicated email account Elise had established. Our last thread concerned the hospital’s billing estimate and the infant CPR classes she wanted us to compare. I started a new message rather than burying this inside a practical discussion.
Serena left me a voicemail this morning from a new number. She asked me to come see her and to tell her the three weeks contained something real.
I deleted the second sentence.
Elise did not need Serena’s words placed in her head. She needed the facts that affected the boundary.
I began again.
Serena contacted me this morning from a new number and asked for direct reassurance about the period when I was pretending to be her partner.
I did not respond or replay the message.
I forwarded it to Nadia and the treatment team.
Nadia confirmed she was with Serena and that Serena has professional support scheduled today. I blocked the number.
You do not need to reply. I am telling you now because we agreed any direct contact would be disclosed immediately.
I read it for qualifiers.
There were none.
I sent it.
Then I put the phone in my pocket and went to work.
---
“You said silence felt unfinished,” Dr. Levin said that afternoon.
“It did.”
“What did you want to say?”
“That I cared whether she was frightened.”
“And what would replying have done?”
“Made me the source of the next answer. Whether I meant the promises. Whether I missed her. Whether I would visit.”
“So you let her believe you felt nothing?”
The question landed where the text had.
“I let her be hurt without using my access to make myself feel kinder. I confirmed she had care. The rest of the cost was mine.”
---
Elise had already chosen the table when I entered the café on Thursday.
It was the same one we had used for the previous two weeks: near the front window, visible from the counter, far enough from the door that cold air did not reach her chair whenever someone came in. She had a folder beside her tea and her phone facedown near her right hand.
I stopped at the empty chair.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
I sat.
She wore a charcoal sweater that curved over the pregnancy I still had to train myself not to stare at.
The change from seventeen weeks to twenty-one had been gradual in photographs I did not possess and appointments I was not automatically invited to attend.
In person, every week registered at once.
I kept my hands around my coffee.
Her folder stayed closed between us.
“I got your email.”
“Okay.”
“Did you respond directly, from another number, or through Nadia?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you respond?” she asked.
“Because she was asking me to make her feel better about the relationship I fabricated. Any answer from me would have reopened the same emotional channel.”
“Even if you told her it was all false?”
“That would still make me the person she came to for resolution. Nadia and her treatment team can help her process the truth without giving me that position again.”
Elise’s fingers rested on the folder’s edge.
“Do you still feel like you were cruel?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you do with that?”
“Confirmed she had care. Sent the message where it belonged. Blocked the number.”
Elise’s gaze did not move. “That isn’t what I asked.”
“I know.” I looked at the coffee between my hands. “I let the feeling stay mine.”
Her gaze dropped briefly to my wedding ring.
“At the hospital,” she said, “you told me Serena needed a few more days because you couldn’t take away everything at once.”
“I remember.”
“You made it sound like the pain itself proved the delay was necessary.”
“Yes.”
“No. Tell me what you know now.”
The café’s milk steamer hissed behind the counter. Someone laughed near the door. I kept my voice low.
“I treated pain like a queue. Serena’s was in front of me, so I kept moving it ahead. Yours stayed behind a closed door, so I kept adding days to it.”
Elise did not look away.
She checked the time. We had nine minutes left.
“Last week you asked whether you would ever be allowed to know me as I am now.”
“I remember.”
“Not yet wasn’t never. It also wasn’t permission to keep asking.”
“I understand.”
She closed the folder.
“Handling Serena this way doesn’t buy you anything,” she said. “That was the agreement.”
“I know.”
“I’m choosing one thing because I want to.” Her fingers stayed on the folder. “One day, I may ask you to have coffee with me when the baby isn’t the subject. I choose the day and what I share. Thirty minutes. Public. It is not a date.”
The opening was smaller than what I wanted and larger than anything she had offered.
“All right.”
“Don’t ask me when.”
“I won’t.”
At exactly thirty minutes, I closed my notebook.
I carried my cup to the trash and left.