7. Lena
LENA
I opened the wardrobe in our bedroom, the overhead light throwing shadows across the expensive wood. The doors swung wide without a sound. Everything in this house worked that way — silent, perfect, expensive.
My clothes hung on the left side, his on the right.
Twelve years of marriage and we'd kept that division without ever talking about it.
I reached for my dresses first, pulling them from the hangers one by one.
The fabric slid through my hands, cool and weightless.
A black sheath dress I'd worn to one of his restaurant openings.
A blue wrap dress I'd bought for myself years ago.
A grey cashmere sweater that still felt new because I hardly went anywhere that needed it.
I laid them across the bed, then went back for more. Skirts I never wore, blouses that still had the tags on them. My hand found the empty space before my brain caught up. I stopped, staring at the gap in Theo's side of the wardrobe.
One of his shirts was missing.
It should have been there between the charcoal button-down and the navy one with the thin white stripe.
The dark green henley, the one with the worn collar and the small pulled thread near the left shoulder seam.
He'd had that shirt for years, long enough that the fabric had gone soft and the green had faded just slightly at the shoulders where the sun hit it when he stood at the stove in our old apartment.
I'd washed it a hundred times, hung it to dry because the dryer made it shrink.
The brand tag inside the collar had been rubbed almost blank from wear.
It wasn't there.
I looked at the empty hanger, then at the rest of his clothes. Everything else was where it should be. The white dress shirts he wore to business meetings, the black ones he wore in the kitchens, the casual button-downs for the rare days he worked from home. Just that one shirt gone.
He must have taken it to the restaurant, I thought.
Left it in his office, maybe, or in one of the kitchens.
Theo did that sometimes — walked out of the house wearing one thing, came home in another, left a trail of shirts and jackets across his empire like he couldn't be bothered to keep track. It didn't mean anything.
I turned back to my side of the wardrobe and pulled down the rest of my clothes.
My suitcase lay open on the bed, the same battered case I'd brought with me when I moved into this house twelve years ago.
I'd kept it in the back of the closet all this time, never needed it for anything.
Never went anywhere without Theo, and when I went with him I used the matching set of luggage his assistant had ordered, sleek black hardshell cases with his initials embossed in silver.
I wasn't taking those.
I folded my dresses carefully, the way my mother had taught me, sleeves in first, then the body of the garment, smooth and flat so nothing wrinkled.
The cashmere sweater went on top. My hands moved without thinking, the same motion I'd done a thousand times doing his laundry, packing his bags for trips I didn't go on.
Folding his clothes while he built a world I had no part in.
Something slipped out from between two of his shirts and landed on the floor by my foot.
I bent down and picked it up.
A piece of paper, folded in half, the edges worn soft.
I opened it and saw my own handwriting, younger and rounder than it was now, the letters careful and even across the page.
A menu. The menu I'd written out by hand for Theo's first restaurant, back when the two of us had stayed up late in our tiny apartment planning every detail together.
Back when he'd asked me what I thought, what I wanted, what I'd imagined.
Starters. Mains. Desserts.
I'd written the categories in capital letters, underlined them twice.
Under each one I'd listed the dishes we'd talked about, the ones he'd wanted to try, the ones I'd suggested.
Roasted beet salad with goat cheese and candied walnuts.
Pan-seared salmon with lemon butter and asparagus.
Chocolate torte with raspberry coulis. I'd even sketched a little fork and knife in the corner of the page, tried to make it look professional even though I had no idea what I was doing.
Some of those dishes had made it onto the actual menu at his first place. Some hadn't. I couldn't remember anymore which ones had survived and which ones he'd changed. I couldn't remember the last time he'd asked me what I thought about anything he was building.
The paper was creased down the middle from being folded so long, and there was a faint coffee stain in one corner from the night we'd sat at our kitchen table working on it, drinking cheap coffee and dreaming about what we'd make together.
I'd thought we were partners then. Thought I'd have a place in what he was creating.
I stood there holding the menu, the paper thin and soft between my fingers.
Why didn't I say anything?
The question had been sitting in my chest since I walked out of Adriatico, since I saw Bianca's hand on Theo's collar and watched him let her touch him and didn't say a single word.
I could have confronted them right there.
Could have asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, letting another woman put her hands on him like she had the right.
Could have asked her who she thought she was, treating me like I was invisible, like I was nothing, like I didn't exist.
I didn't.
I'd stood there and watched, and then I'd walked out without a word, and I still didn't know why.
Maybe I was afraid of what he'd say. Maybe I was afraid he'd have an explanation that made sense, that made me look like an idiot for even noticing.
She's my PR agent, Lena. She was fixing my collar.
You're overreacting. Maybe he'd look at me with that expression he got sometimes, the one that said I didn't understand his world, didn't understand how things worked in the restaurant business, didn't understand that this was just how it was.
Maybe I was afraid he wouldn't have an explanation at all. That he wouldn't even understand why I was upset. That he'd look confused, like I was making a problem out of nothing, like I was the one being unreasonable.
Maybe I was afraid I already knew the answer and I just didn't want to hear him say it out loud. That Bianca mattered more than I did. That she had a place in his life I'd given up years ago. That I'd let myself become so small and so quiet that he'd stopped seeing me altogether.
Or maybe I was just tired. Tired of fighting for scraps of his attention. Tired of sitting at dinner alone. Tired of being married to a man who treated me like part of the furniture, something that came with the house, useful but not particularly interesting.
I didn't know. I didn't have an answer. I just had the question sitting in my chest like a stone.
I set the menu down on the dresser and went to the bathroom for my things.
My toothbrush, my face wash, the moisturizer I used every night.
I put them in the small toiletry bag I kept under the sink, the one I used when I went to Maggie's house and stayed overnight in her guest room.
My hands were shaking slightly and I gripped the edge of the sink, stared at myself in the mirror.
My face looked pale, the skin under my eyes shadowed like I hadn't slept.
My left hand rested on the cold marble and I could see the bare stripe of skin on my ring finger, paler than the rest, the place where my wedding band used to sit.
I pulled my hand away and zipped the toiletry bag closed.
Back in the bedroom I packed my underwear, my socks, the pajamas I actually wore instead of the silk ones Theo had bought me for our anniversary three years ago.
I took my comfortable jeans, my sneakers, my favorite cardigan with the buttons that didn't match because I'd replaced one of them years ago and couldn't find the right color.
I took the things that were mine, the things I'd bought with my own money or owned before I married him.
I left everything else.
The thought came to me as I was folding my last pair of jeans that I should tell him I was leaving. That I should at least leave a note, or send a text message, or call him and say I needed some time away. That disappearing without a word was cruel, maybe, or cowardly.
But what would I say?
I saw you with Bianca and I can't stop thinking about it. That sounded paranoid, jealous, small.
I need some space. That sounded like I was punishing him for something he didn't know he'd done.
I don't know if I can do this anymore. That sounded final, and I didn't know if I wanted it to be final. I didn't know what I wanted at all.
I just knew I couldn't stay here tonight.
Couldn't sit at the table and eat dinner across from him — if he even came home for dinner — and pretend everything was fine.
Couldn't lie in our bed and feel the distance between us, the space that had been growing for years and that I'd been trying not to notice.
I wasn't ready to talk to him. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I didn't know.
I closed the suitcase, the zipper loud in the quiet room. It held only my things, the parts of my life that had nothing to do with his money or his name or the world he'd built without me. It wasn't very full. I could carry it myself, no problem. One hand, down the stairs, out the door.
I picked up the menu from the dresser and looked at it one more time.
My handwriting. My ideas. The version of me who'd believed we were building something together, who'd thought I had a place in his work, in his life, in his future.
That version of me had written this menu and believed it mattered, believed I mattered.
She'd drawn that little fork and knife in the corner and thought she was being helpful. Thought she was contributing something.
God, I'd been so young. So stupid.
I set it back down on the dresser, carefully, like it might fall apart if I wasn't gentle.
Let it sit there with the rest of the things I was leaving behind.
Let him find it if he wanted to, let him remember the version of us that had made plans together, that had dreamed together, that had wanted the same things.
Or let him not find it. Let it sit there gathering dust along with everything else I'd given up for him.
I walked through the bedroom, past the abstract art on the walls that a decorator had chosen, art I'd never liked but had never said anything about because it wasn't worth fighting over.
Past the dresser that cost more than a car, past the chairs by the window that nobody ever sat in.
Everything in this room was beautiful and expensive and chosen by someone else.
Downstairs was worse. The kitchen with its marble countertops and commercial-grade appliances, the kind of kitchen most people would kill for, the kind of kitchen Theo never cooked in because he was always at one of his restaurants.
The living room with its leather furniture and the coffee table made of reclaimed wood that had some kind of story behind it I couldn't remember.
The dining table I'd eaten at alone more times than I could count, the chairs that never had people in them, the chandelier that was always too bright or too dim and I'd never figured out how to adjust it properly.
I walked past all of it with my suitcase in my hand.
The house was dark and quiet. Theo wasn't home. He might not be home for hours. He might come home and not even notice I was gone until tomorrow, until he woke up and realized my side of the bed was empty.
Or maybe he'd notice right away. Maybe he'd walk in and feel the difference, the absence, the way I'd been feeling his absence for twelve years.
I didn't know.
I pulled open the front door and the evening air hit me, cooler than I expected. I hadn't checked the weather. Hadn't thought to bring a jacket. It didn't matter. I could get a jacket at Maggie's, could borrow one of hers if I got cold. I didn't need anything from this house.
I stepped outside, pulled the door closed behind me. The light over the door was on, the same light that had been on when I came home. When I'd come home to pack. When I'd decided I couldn't do this anymore.
When I'd decided — what? I didn't know what I'd decided. Only that I couldn't stay.
I put my suitcase in the backseat of my car and slid behind the wheel. Started the engine. The sky was dark, the streetlights already on.
I pulled out of the driveway and didn't look back at the house.
Was it too late? The question sat in my chest, heavy and unanswered. Too late for what? For us? For the marriage we'd promised each other twelve years ago, the one where we'd be partners, where we'd build a life together instead of two separate lives that happened to share an address?
I didn't know. I didn't know if the love we'd had was still there under all the silence and the distance and the years of him choosing his work over me. I didn't know if it was something we could get back or if it had been gone so long that there was nothing left to save.
I drove toward Maggie's house and tried not to think about whether it was already too late.