Chapter 11 Adam #2
"I don't know if she'll see me."
"Then do not turn her friends into another negotiating team." He sets down his cup. "Ask what you may do. Accept what you are not allowed to do. Their affection for you cannot substitute for her choice."
"How long did it take? With Marta, when you weren't the husband she deserved."
"Three months. The longest three months of my life." He smiles. "But I had forty-three years after that. It was worth every moment of groveling."
I leave Hamburg thinking about the part of Klaus's advice I least wanted to hear: accept no.
The flight back gives me time to do what I should have done years ago. I pull out my phone and I find Daisy's blog. I start from the beginning.
The first posts are tentative, finding her voice.
She writes about romance novels with a precision and passion that makes me realize I never understood why she loved them.
She analyzes tropes and character arcs and emotional payoffs with the rigor of a literary scholar and the heart of someone who genuinely believes in happy endings.
Then she starts writing about our marriage.
She never names me, she's too smart for that, but I can see myself in the heroes she critiques. The ones who provide instead of love. The ones who show up for the big moments but miss all the small ones. The ones who think that building something is the same as sharing it. One essay stops me cold:
RULE ONE: A HERO SHOWS UP.
It isn't for the grand gestures or the dramatic rescues. He shows up for the ordinary moments, the Wednesday dinners and the Sunday mornings and the random Tuesdays when nothing important happens except the fact that he's there.
The best romance heroes understand that love isn't built in ballrooms. It's built in the boring moments when choosing each other takes effort. When it would be easier to work late or check your phone or be anywhere else, and you choose to be present anyway.
That's rule one. Everything else (the witty banter, the slow burn, the eventual grand gesture) means nothing without it.
I keep the essay open until the flight attendant asks me to put the phone away.
She was writing about me. Every word of it was about me, and I was too blind to see it even when she left the posts open on her laptop, even when she asked me about heroes and romance and what made love real.
I was the hero in her story. And I never showed up.
The plane lands. I go home only long enough to shower and change, and then I'm in a car heading toward The Margin.
The bookstore is small and warm, cluttered with books and reading chairs and hand-lettered signs.
A gray cat watches me from the counter with an expression of profound disinterest. The woman behind the register (Nell, Daisy's friend, the one who owns this place) looks up when I enter and her face goes hard.
"Oh, hell no." She plants her hands on the counter. "You have got to be kidding me."
"I'm looking for Nell Okafor."
"You found her. Now turn around and walk back out that door before I call the police."
"I'm not here to cause trouble—"
"Trouble is literally all you've ever caused.
" She comes around the counter, positioning herself between me and the rest of the store.
"You've got some nerve showing up here after what you did.
Daisy's been upstairs for two weeks trying to put herself back together while you, what, flew to Hamburg?
Fired your PR person? Did everything except actually talk to your wife? "
"How do you know about Hamburg?"
"Daisy talks to Ingrid. Ingrid talks to me.
" She crosses her arms. "I know everything, Mr. Smith.
I know about the contract and the press release and the conversation you had with your father where you told him you weren't sure you loved her.
I know about five years of neglect and excuses and making her feel like an afterthought in her own marriage.
So whatever you're selling, I'm not buying. "
"I'm not selling anything." I stay where I am, hands at my sides. "I came to ask if I could join your book club."
Nell stares at me. Then she laughs: sharp, incredulous, edged with fury.
"You want to join our book club."
"Yes."
"The romance book club that meets in my store every Thursday to discuss love stories and emotional growth. You, the man who couldn't be bothered to show up for his own marriage, want to sit in a circle with Daisy's friends and talk about heroes and happy endings."
"I want to understand what I missed." The words come out rough, honest. "I read her blog. All of it. Five years of posts about what love should look like, and I never read a single word while we were living together. She was telling me exactly what she needed, and I was too arrogant to listen."
"And you think joining the book club fixes that?"
"I think it's a start." I take a breath. "Grayson told me to start with her people. Klaus reminded me that you don't get to decide for her either. You're her best friend. This is her place. If I'm going to earn the right to talk to her, I figure I should start here."
"Why should I believe you've changed?" she asks finally. "Five years of treating her like furniture doesn't disappear because you read some blog posts."
"I started therapy. Last week. I'm working with someone to understand why I let my father's voice drown out everything else, why I built walls around myself instead of letting her in." I meet her eyes. "I'm not asking you to believe I've changed. I'm asking for the chance to prove it."
"And if Daisy doesn't want to see you?"
"Then I respect that. I work on myself whether or not she ever wants to see me again."
The cat hisses from the counter. Nell sighs.
"Fine. One chair, Thursday at seven. You bring wine (the good kind, not the cheap stuff) and you speak only when spoken to.
Ruth will probably threaten to kill you; Bev will try to feed you; Priya will probably ask to film a reading for TikTok.
If you survive all that without making Daisy cry, we'll see about next week. "
"Thank you." The relief hits me so hard I almost stagger. "Thank you, Nell. I won't waste this."
"Don't thank me yet." She points to the door. "Part one is getting my permission. Part two is showing up and being accountable. Part three—" She pauses. "Part three is earning hers. And that's going to take a lot more than wine and good behavior."
I walk out of the store and stand on the sidewalk, breathing in the afternoon air.
Part one done.
Now I grovel.