CHAPTER ELEVEN
DOMINIC
She called him the next morning.
Not a text. She called.
He answered on the first ring.
“Claire came to see me,” she said.
He was quiet for one beat. “When?”
“Last night.”
He thought about this. He hadn’t known Claire intended to reach out to Isla. They hadn’t spoken since January.
“What did she say?” he said.
“Essentially what you said,” Isla said. “From a different angle.” She paused. “She said I’m the highway.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“She said you were a detour she shouldn’t have let herself be.”
“She’s generous,” Dominic said. “About herself.”
“She’s honest,” Isla said. “About herself and about you.”
He held the phone.
“I’m sorry she came without warning,” he said. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t apologize for her,” Isla said. “She did the right thing. I’m glad she came.” A pause. “She gave me the full picture. I’d been working with a partial one.”
“What part was missing?”
Silence.
“The part where you left me for something that lasted six months and ended,” Isla said. “I’d been constructing a version of the story where you’d chosen something that worked. Where you’d left and it had been worth it.” She paused. “That’s — not what happened.”
He held very still.
“I thought that version was better for you,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because the version where I destroyed our marriage for a feeling that didn’t last is — harder,” he said. “It’s more wasteful. More — foolish.”
“You were afraid of my judgment,” she said.
He thought about that.
“Yes,” he said.
“Dominic.” Her voice was quiet and precise. “I would rather have the truth than be managed.”
“I know,” he said. “I knew that and I did it anyway. That’s—” He stopped. “That’s also a failure. A different one.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“I know,” she said. “Yes.” A pause. “I need some time to think.”
“Take whatever you need.”
“Not weeks,” she said. “Days. I need days.”
He breathed.
“Okay,” he said.
“I’ll be at the site Monday,” she said. “I’m not avoiding the work. I just—”
“I know,” he said. “I’ll stay out of the way.”
Another pause.
“You don’t have to stay completely out of the way,” she said.
He held that.
“Okay,” he said again.
She hung up.
He put the phone down.
He thought about what she’d said: I would rather have the truth than be managed.
He’d known that. He’d always known that about her — it was one of the things he’d loved most, the radical preference for reality over comfort. She’d never wanted to be coddled. She’d always wanted to know.
He’d withheld the full story because he was afraid of her judgment.
He’d done it again.
He was still, apparently, learning the same lesson.
He picked up his phone.
He texted Marcus: I keep finding new ways I handled this wrong.
Marcus replied: Yes. That’s called paying attention. You didn’t do it before.
Dominic stared at that.
He typed: Is that supposed to be comforting?
Marcus replied: It’s supposed to be accurate. Comfort is for when the hard part is over.
He put the phone down.
He went to work.
He was going to keep paying attention.