Chapter 5
Margot
The guest room at Wren’s house smells of lemon pledge and neglect. It’s a cold, sterile scent, the smell of a life that doesn’t belong to me.
I sit on the edge of the twin bed, knees pulled up to my chest, staring at the phone resting on the duvet.
Wren is downstairs. I can hear her aggressive banging of pots and pans, a symphony of righteous indignation. She wants me to be angry. She wants me to burn Ross’s clothes and change the locks.
But I’m not angry. I’m hollowed out.
I close my eyes, and I’m back in our bed. I feel the warmth of his skin, the weight of his arm, the safety I thought I had secured after weeks of feeling him slip away. And then, the whisper.
Tabitha.
It wasn’t just a name. It was a confession. It was proof that even when he is inside me, his mind is in that glass tower, sitting next to the woman who speaks his language.
I pick up the phone.
There are three voicemails from him. I haven’t listened to them. I can’t bear to hear his voice.
But then I remember his face yesterday morning, the gray, sunken look of him. Ross isn’t a villain; he’s an addict. He’s addicted to the praise, to the adrenaline, to the validation of the firm.
Does he love her?
The question has been eating at me for twenty-four hours. Or does he just love that she is part of the addiction?
I unlock the phone. My thumb hovers over his name.
“One chance,” I whisper to the empty room.
I’m breaking my own rule. I told myself I needed space. I told myself I wouldn’t let him talk his way out of this. But ten years of marriage is a heavy thing to discard.
I need to know where he is.
If he’s at home, pacing the kitchen, terrified… then maybe there’s something left to save. If he took the day off to find me, to fix this… I’ll talk to him.
But if he’s there…
I press the call icon.
I hold the phone to my ear, my heart hammering a painful rhythm.
Ring.
Please, Ross. Be at home. Be in the car, driving to my parents’. Be anywhere but there.
Ring.
The wait stretches.
Ring.
My stomach turns over. A cold, heavy stone settles in my gut.
He’s not answering.
He’s staring at the phone. I know it. He’s looking at it, and he’s looking at them—Miller, the brief, the partnership, the woman.
And he’s choosing.
Ring.
The line clicks.
“You’ve reached Ross Calder. I’m currently unavailable…”
I pull the phone away from my ear as his recorded voice confident, professional, distant, fills the room.
He didn’t pick up.
He went to work. After everything, after the whisper, after I left, after the wreckage of our marriage lay smoking on the floor, he got up, put on a suit, and went to work.
I don’t cry. The tears dry instantly, replaced by a clarity so sharp it cuts.
Wren was right. I shouldn’t be angry. I should be done.
I end the call.
And then I go downstairs to help Wren make coffee. I’m done competing for my husband’s attention. The only thing left is to tell him I want a separation.