8. Ariah
— ? —
Ariah
I don’t sleep.
Not really. I drift in and out of something that feels like unconsciousness, but every time I close my eyes I hear it again, I don’t know if I should have married her. The love isn’t there like it used to be, and my whole body goes rigid with the effort of not screaming.
By the time dawn breaks, I’ve cycled through every emotion available to me: rage, grief, humiliation, more rage, a brief stint of numb acceptance, and finally something that might be survival instinct kicking in.
I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and force myself to think.
He said the love isn’t there. He said he doesn’t know if he should have married me. But we have two children asleep down the hall, two four-year-olds who love their father and don’t deserve to have their family torn apart because their mother overheard one sentence through a door.
Maybe I misunderstood.
Maybe there was context I missed. Maybe he was saying something that sounded cruel but meant something else, some nuance lost in the gap between his mouth and my ears.
Or maybe he meant exactly what it sounded like, and my husband of six years regrets every moment of this marriage, and I’ve been living in a fantasy where he loved me back.
The thought makes me want to throw up, but I swallow it down. I can’t fall apart right now. The twins need breakfast.
They need normalcy, routine, a mother who isn’t crumbling from the inside out.
I get up. I wash my face. I put on clothes that feel like armor and go downstairs to make waffles.
Piper finds me there an hour later, standing at the counter with the waffle iron open, watching it steam without really seeing it.
“You look like death,” she says, which is Piper’s version of good morning.
“Didn’t sleep.”
“I noticed. You were up when I went to bed at midnight and you were still up when I got up to pee at three.” She pours herself coffee from the pot I made, studies my face over the rim of the mug. “What happened? Did he show up after all?”
“He came home around one.”
“And?”
“And I don’t want to talk about it.”
She’s quiet for a moment, processing. Piper knows me well enough to recognize when pushing will help and when it will make things worse. This is one of those times when pushing will make things worse.
“Okay,” she says finally. “But I’m here. When you’re ready.”
“I know.” I lift out a waffle that’s slightly too brown on one side. “I know you are.”
The twins come down for breakfast and I perform the role of mother with mechanical precision - cutting waffles into triangles for Luca, answering Lucy’s endless questions about why the sky is blue, mediating the inevitable argument over who gets the last of the strawberry syrup.
They don’t notice anything wrong, or if they do, they’re too young to articulate it. Small mercies.
Pietro appears in the kitchen doorway just as I’m loading the dishwasher, and my whole body goes tense at the sight of him. He’s dressed for work already, suit and tie, the uniform of a man who has somewhere more important to be.
“Morning,” he says, his eyes searching my face. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“You’re still upset about last night.”
“I said I’m fine, Pietro.”
He crosses to me, and I hate how my heart still stutters when he gets close, hate how my body remembers all the ways we fit together even when my mind is screaming at me to run. He reaches out to touch my arm and I step back, just slightly, but enough that his hand falls to his side.
“Ariah.” His voice is soft, careful. “Whatever I did - whatever’s wrong - I want to fix it.”
“There’s nothing to fix.” The lie tastes like ash in my mouth. “You should go. You’ll be late.”
“I don’t care about being late.”
“You should care. It’s the launch tomorrow. This is what you’ve been working toward for months.”
Something shifts in his expression - frustration, maybe, or confusion, or the particular helplessness of a man who knows something is wrong but can’t figure out what. “Will you come? To the launch tomorrow?”
I wasn’t planning to. After last night, after what I heard, I was planning to stay home and figure out how to survive the collapse of everything I thought I had.
But now, standing in my kitchen with my husband looking at me like he genuinely doesn’t understand why I’m pulling away, I think: what if I’m wrong?
What if I misheard? What if there’s an explanation? What if I burn my marriage to the ground over a fragment of a conversation I wasn’t meant to hear, and it turns out to mean something completely different?
The launch is built on my ideas.
Everyone in that room will be celebrating concepts I developed, strategies I suggested, a vision that came from my mind even if my name is nowhere near it.
If Pietro sees me there, if he looks across that room and finds me, acknowledges me, chooses me in front of everyone, then maybe there’s something left to save.
And if he doesn’t…
Then I’ll know. I’ll have my answer, and I can act accordingly.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
“Please come.” He takes another step toward me, and this time I don’t move away. “I know things have been hard lately. I know I’ve been absent. But the launch tomorrow matters, and I want you there with me.”
With him. Like I’m an accessory. Like my presence is a nice addition to the evening rather than a fundamental part of who he is.
But I don’t say any of that. I just nod, and I let him kiss my forehead before he leaves, and I stand in the kitchen long after his car has disappeared down the drive, thinking about tests and answers and the rapidly narrowing space between hope and despair.
* * *
That afternoon, while Piper takes the twins to the park - Luca’s emergency kit tucked into the diaper bag as always - I do something I never thought I’d do.
I pack a bag.
Not everything - just the essentials. A change of clothes for me, changes for Luca and Lucy. Their favorite toys, the ones they can’t sleep without. My passport, the twins’ documents. The portable tools from my workshop, the ones I could rebuild a practice with if I had to.
I tell myself it’s contingency planning. It’s being prepared. It’s what any sensible woman would do when her marriage might be imploding.
I’ll need to remember Luca’s kit when Piper gets back with them - it goes everywhere he goes, no exceptions.
I’m not leaving. Not yet. The launch is my test, and I’m still hoping Pietro will pass it.
But if he doesn’t…
I tuck the bag into the back of my closet, hidden behind winter coats I never wear, and I try to ignore the way my hands are shaking.
* * *
Rosaria calls at four o’clock.
I almost don’t answer - I’m in no mood for my mother-in-law’s particular brand of patronizing warmth - but some instinct makes me pick up, some need to know what shape tomorrow evening’s battlefield will take.
“Ariah, darling.” Her voice is honeyed and pleasant, the way it always is when she wants something. “I just wanted to make sure you’re coming tomorrow. Pietro mentioned you’ve been unwell.”
“I’m feeling better,” I lie.
“Oh, wonderful. Because we couldn’t possibly do this without you, you know. You’re family, and this is a family occasion.”
Something about her tone makes me wary. Rosaria has never - not once in six years - expressed any genuine desire for my presence at anything. She tolerates me at holidays. She endures me at family functions. She has never actively wanted me somewhere.
“That’s very kind of you to say.”
“Nonsense, it’s simply the truth. You’ll sit with the family, of course. I’ve arranged everything. It wouldn’t be right for Pietro’s wife to be anywhere else.”
His wife. Family. Words she’s never used about me without an edge of disdain underneath them.
“I’ll be there,” I hear myself say. “With the children.”
“Perfect. Simply perfect.” There’s something in her voice that sounds almost like satisfaction. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then. And Ariah - do try to look your best. The cameras will be watching.”
She hangs up before I can respond, and I stand there with the phone in my hand, trying to figure out why an invitation that should feel welcoming feels instead like a trap being set.
Of course you’ll be there, dear. We wouldn’t dream of it without you.
For the first time all day, something cold settles in my stomach that has nothing to do with last night.
Because Rosaria wants me there. Rosaria, who has spent six years trying to edge me out of her son’s life, wants me at the launch.
Which means something is about to happen.
Something I won’t like.