11. Elise
ELISE
Morning light came through the curtains but I'd been awake for hours, staring at the ceiling in Mara's living room and trying not to think about where Graham was right now or whether he'd noticed I never came home.
The couch cushions were soft under my back and someone had tucked a blanket around me sometime in the night, probably Mara, though I didn't remember her doing it.
The house smelled like coffee and cinnamon rolls and I could hear muffled sounds from upstairs, the kids getting ready for something. Tuesday. It was Tuesday and I was lying on her couch in yesterday's dress with no wedding ring and no idea what I was supposed to do next.
My left hand felt wrong. Too light. I kept curling my thumb over the empty space where the ring should have been, touching the pale band of skin that eleven years of marriage had left behind.
I sat up slowly, my head fuzzy and my mouth dry, and pushed the blanket aside. My purse was on the floor next to the couch where I'd dropped it last night. I didn't remember much about getting here, just that I'd walked out of the gallery and taken a cab to Mara's door.
Footsteps on the stairs made me look up.
Mara appeared in the doorway with two mugs of coffee, her hair in a messy bun and her face soft with the kind of concern that made my throat go tight.
She was wearing pajama pants and an old college sweatshirt and she looked so normal, so steady, that I wanted to cry.
She didn't say anything. Just crossed the room and handed me one of the mugs, then settled into the armchair across from me and curled her legs underneath her. Waiting. Patient. The way she'd always been, the way that made you feel like you could tell her anything and she wouldn't flinch.
I wrapped both hands around the mug, grateful for the warmth against my palms. The coffee was perfect, the way Mara always made it, and I took a sip even though it was too hot and burned my tongue.
"I went back," I said finally. My voice came out rough, scratchy from sleep and from the tears I'd cried into Mara's shoulder when I'd shown up at her door last night. "After the speech. I went back to the gallery."
Mara didn't ask why. She just watched me with those steady brown eyes and waited.
"I thought—" I stopped, shook my head. "I don't know what I thought.
That maybe he'd follow me. That he'd realize I'd left and come after me, that he'd want to know why I walked out after his big speech about the future of the gallery and Petra's invaluable contributions and everything he's building. "
God, how stupid that sounded out loud. How pathetic.
"He didn't," I said. "Come after me, I mean. The gallery was empty when I got there. Just streetlight through the front windows and my footsteps echoing on the floor."
I took another sip of coffee, using it as an excuse not to meet Mara's eyes. My hands were shaking slightly and I hated that she could probably see it, could see how close I was to falling apart completely.
"It wasn't the first time I've seen them together," I said. The words came out flat, factual, like I was reporting on someone else's life. "Ten days ago. I went to the gallery. I had no good reason except that Graham was inside and I wanted to see him. I heard him laughing before I saw him."
My throat went tight and I had to stop, had to breathe through the ache that was building in my chest. I set the mug down on the coffee table between us because my hands were shaking too badly to hold it steady.
"His office door was open," I continued. "Just halfway. And I stepped into the doorway and saw them."
The image was burned into my brain. I'd replayed it a hundred times, a thousand times, and it never got easier.
"Petra was there and she saw me first. Her eyes met mine for just a second and then she turned back to Graham and put her arms around him. She hugged him. And he—" My voice cracked and I pressed my lips together, trying to hold it together. "He hugged her back. They were both smiling."
Mara leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Her mug sat forgotten in her hands.
"I stood there like an idiot," I said. "I just stood there in the doorway watching my husband embrace another woman in his office and I couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't do anything but watch."
The silence stretched between us and I realized I was crying, tears sliding down my face without me noticing when they'd started. I wiped at them with the back of my hand, annoyed at myself for being so weak.
"Last week Petra came to the house," I said, and the words were coming faster now, spilling out like I'd been holding them in too long and they'd built up too much pressure. "She said things. About her and Graham."
"What things?" Mara's voice was careful, gentle.
I looked down at my bare left hand, at the pale strip of skin where the ring had been. "She said they're more than work. Those were her exact words. More than work. She said Graham calls her late at night. That he takes her to studio visits without me."
The worst part was how reasonable it had all sounded coming out of Petra's mouth. How she'd made it seem like she was just stating obvious facts instead of systematically dismantling my marriage right in front of me.
"She brought up the embrace," I said. "The one I saw. She said when she reached for him, he didn't pull away."
"Elise." Mara's voice was tight with anger, the first real reaction she'd shown.
"I went back to the gallery last night after the speech and I took off my ring," I said, and God, even saying it out loud felt surreal, like I was talking about someone else's choices instead of my own.
"I stood at the front desk and I pulled it off my finger and I set it down right in the middle of the glass surface where Graham would see it this morning when he came in. "
Mara set her mug down carefully, deliberately, like she was afraid if she moved too fast she might break something. "Elise?—"
"I don't know what I'm doing, Mara." The confession came out raw and jagged and I couldn't stop it, couldn't hold back the desperation that was clawing its way up my throat.
"I don't know what I want him to do when he finds it.
I don't know what I'll say when he calls and asks why I left it there.
I just know I couldn't wear it anymore. Not after sitting through that speech listening to him thank Petra for everything she's done and everything she means to the gallery and never once saying my name. "
My voice cracked on the last word and I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill over again.
Mara didn't say anything. She just waited, giving me space to fall apart in her living room while her kids played upstairs and the coffee went cold in our mugs.
"Do you know what I want?" I asked, dropping my hands to look at her.
It was a rhetorical question but I answered it anyway because I needed to say it out loud, needed to make it real by speaking it into existence.
"I want a husband who says my name in rooms full of people.
Who speaks up for me when someone is standing right in front of him being cruel to my face and he's just—just standing there like he doesn't even notice. "
My hands were shaking again and I pressed them flat against my thighs, digging my fingers into the fabric of my dress.
"I want him to see me," I said, and my voice was rising, getting louder, but I couldn't stop it. "I want him to look at me when I'm standing right in front of him instead of looking through me like I'm invisible, like I'm just part of the background he doesn't have to think about anymore."
Mara's eyes were fixed on mine, intent and sad and full of understanding that made my chest ache.
"I want credit for eleven years of work that nobody sees," I continued.
"For every piece I chose that built his reputation, for every artist I convinced to sign with him when they wouldn't take his calls, for every dinner party I hosted where deals got made over wine I selected and food I planned and conversations I steered to make sure Graham came out on top. "
I was getting louder and I knew it, knew the kids could probably hear me through the floor, but I couldn't stop. It was like something had broken open inside me and everything I'd been holding in for eleven years was pouring out in Mara's living room.
"I want him to defend me," I said. "I want him to tell his mother I'm not a gold digger who married him for his family's money.
I want him to tell Petra I'm not his decorator, that I'm not the woman who just picks the flowers and smiles for the cameras.
I want him to fight for us, for this marriage, for what we used to have before the gallery took over everything and I became invisible in my own life. "
My voice broke and I pressed my fingers against my eyes, trying to stop the tears, but they came anyway, hot and angry and full of everything I'd been too afraid to feel.
"I want room to paint again," I whispered. "Not in secret. Not locked in a room nobody knows exists. I want him to see what I gave up for him. What I'm still giving up. Every single day."
The silence that followed was thick and heavy, pressing down on my shoulders like a weight I couldn't shake off. I dropped my hands and looked at Mara through blurred vision.
"I still love him," I said, and that was the worst part, the thing I couldn't make sense of no matter how many times I turned it over in my head.
"I still love him, Mara. Even after everything.
Even knowing about Petra and the late-night calls and the studio visits and the way he looks at her like she matters and looks at me like I don't. I still love him and I don't know if that makes me strong or just incredibly stupid. "
"You're not stupid," Mara said, and her voice was fierce, certain in a way that made my throat go tight.
"I need you to understand," I said, and I could hear the desperation in my own voice, the need for someone to really see what I was going through and not turn away. "I need someone to understand why I can't just walk away, why I can't just call it what it?—"
The word stuck in my throat. Affair. I couldn't say it. Couldn't make it real by putting a name to it, by admitting out loud what Petra had built with her careful words and her strategic touches and her arms around my husband while I stood in the doorway watching him hug her back.
If I said the word, it became true. If I didn't say it, maybe I could still pretend there was another explanation, some other reason for everything I'd seen and heard.
"I understand," Mara said quietly, and something in her voice told me she really did.
We sat there in the quiet, the morning light growing stronger through the curtains and turning the dust motes in the air to gold.
Somewhere in the house a door opened and closed.
One of the kids called something I couldn't make out and the other one answered, their voices light and carefree in a way that made me ache for a simplicity I couldn't remember ever having.
The coffee in my mug had gone cold but I picked it up anyway, just to have something to hold onto. My left hand felt naked without the ring but I didn't regret leaving it at the gallery. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Mara didn't tell me what to do. She didn't offer advice or solutions or empty reassurances that everything would work out in the end.
She didn't tell me to leave him or stay with him or confront him or pretend I'd never seen what I'd seen.
She just sat with me in her living room while the morning unfolded around us and let me fall apart without trying to put me back together.
And somehow that was exactly what I needed.
"Thank you," I said finally, and the words felt too small for what she'd given me, for the space she'd created just by listening and being present and not turning away.
Mara's smile was small and sad and achingly real. "That's what I'm here for, Elise."
I nodded and took a sip of the cold coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste but swallowing it anyway because it gave me something to do with my hands.
Outside, a car drove past. Someone called to a neighbor.
A dog barked. The world kept turning like nothing had changed, like my entire life hadn't shifted under my feet while I stood at a front desk and pulled off my wedding ring.
We stayed there together, not talking, just being, and for the first time since I'd left after that speech last night I felt like maybe I could breathe again.
Like maybe there was air in my lungs and space in my chest and I wasn't going to suffocate under the weight of everything I didn't know how to say.
Just a little.