Chapter 18
Margot
It’s early in the morning and I’m already outside. I submitted a handful of art pieces for a local artist showcase, and I, along with several others, were selected. That was two weeks ago. The showcase has come fast. It’s tomorrow. So now I’m painting to relax my nerves.
The acrid tang of linseed oil and turpentine hangs heavy in the early-morning air.
It’s a sharp, chemical smell that I used to hate, but today it smells like oxygen, especially lovely because it’s all my space.
I love Wren and appreciate her opening her home to me, but I haven’t returned since my last clothing run.
I stand in the garden, the easel digging into the soft earth. On the canvas, muddied umbers bleed into a harsh, acidic yellow. I’m trying to capture a solitary figure standing at an impossible crossroads, but the light isn’t right yet.
I step back, wiping my hands on a rag.
In my old life, the one with Ross, I would be making espresso right now or checking his calendar, bracing myself for the rush of his departure. My morning cortisol levels would be dictated entirely by his schedule.
Today, the only schedule I have is the drying time of the paint.
I take a sip of my tea. It’s cold, but I don’t care.
For the first time in five years, my brain is soothed. No background radiation of “How can I fix him?” or “Is he happy?” runs through my mind. There is just me, the color yellow, and the birds chirping in the neighbor’s yard.
And the terrifying truth is: I like it.
I like the quiet. I like that I took up the entire bed last night. I like that I don’t have to shrink myself to fit into the empty spaces of someone else’s ambition.
I lift the palette knife, ready to scrape the yellow back, when a shadow falls across the grass.
I don’t turn immediately. I know that shadow. I know the shape of those shoulders.
Resentment flares in my chest, not the heavy, grieving kind, but a sharp, prickly irritation. I was working. I was in the flow.
I deliberately clean the knife before I turn.
Ross stands at the edge of the garden, where the manicured hedge gives way to the wildflowers I stopped pruning last week. He looks different, no suit, no phone, just worn denim and a t-shirt that’s seen a few wash cycles.
But I don’t stare at him with longing anymore. I see him as an interruption.
“You’re painting,” he says. His voice is low, respectful.
“I am.” I cross my arms, holding the dirty rag like a shield. “Did you need something, Ross? I’m in the middle of a session.”
He blinks, surprised by the sharpness of my tone. He’s used to Sad Margot. He’s used to Angry Margot. He isn’t used to Busy Margot.
“I… I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he says. “I noticed you out here. It’s been a long time since I saw you at an easel.”
“It’s been a long time since I had the mental space to stand at one.”
The words land hard. He flinches, staring down at his sneakers. “I know. And I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need apologies, Ross. I need light.” I gesture to the canvas with the palette knife. “And you’re standing in it.”
He steps aside quickly, moving into the shade of the oak tree. “Right. Sorry.”
He stays there, hovering, looking lost. A month ago, seeing him this unmoored would have broken my heart. I would have rushed to comfort him.
Now, I just want to finish the yellow section.
“Margot,” he says, and there’s a desperate, raw edge to his voice that finally pulls my gaze away from the canvas. “I miss you. I miss us.”
“I know you do.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, and the honesty of it feels dangerous. “I miss the companionship, sure. But Ross… I don’t miss the weight. I woke up this morning and didn’t have to worry about anyone but myself. Do you have any idea how addictive that is?”
He goes still. This is the threat he didn’t see coming. He prepared for my anger; he didn’t prepare for my indifference.
“I’m trying to fix that,” he says intently. “I’m rebuilding. I’m stripping it all down so I can be the person who adds to your life, not the one who drains it.”
“I hear you,” I say. “But I’m building something too.” I point to the canvas, then to the house, then to myself. “I’m finally filling in the outlines of my own life. I’m terrified that if I let you back in, you’re going to take over again.”
“I won’t,” he vows. “I’ll stay in the background. I’ll just… I’ll stretch the canvas. I’ll wash the brushes. Just let me be there.”
He takes a step forward. “Coffee? Ten minutes. I promise I won’t keep you from the work. I just want to exist in the same space as you for a moment.”
I hesitate.
Part of me wants to say yes immediately. But a newer, stronger part of me checks my mental watch.
I have a call with Wren at noon. I want to finish this layer by ten.
“I can give you twenty minutes,” I say, checking the drying paint. “But then I have to get back to this. The light changes at eleven, and I can’t miss it.”
Ross smiles, a small, relieved thing that reaches his eyes. “Twenty minutes. I’ll take it.”
I set the palette knife down and wipe my hands.
I am not walking into this coffee date as a wife hoping to be salvaged. I am walking into it as a woman who has things to do.
“Okay,” I say, untying my apron. “Twenty minutes. But you’re buying.”
He nods, stepping back to let me lead the way. “Deal.”
As we walk toward the gate, I don’t reach for his hand. I keep my own rhythm, enjoying the stride of my walk, and for the first time, Ross has to quicken his pace to keep up with me.
Inside the café, the clatter of cups and muted conversation surges around us like a tide.
We slide into a small booth by the fogged window, an island of two in a sea of strangers.
Ross sits across from me, hands folded on the table.
His phone is conspicuously absent. It’s a small thing, but in the context of our marriage, it feels enormous.
The barista places two steaming mugs before us. I curl both hands around the warm ceramic and close my eyes, letting the heat seep into my bones. Silence unfurls between us, no blame, no accusations, just the awkward hush of two people relearning each other’s rhythm.
“So,” he begins, his voice tentative, “how have you been? Really?”
I lift the mug to my lips. The coffee is sharp, bittersweet. “At peace,” I say. “I’ve been discovering who I am outside of being ‘the architect’s wife.’ Painting helps. What about you?”
Ross traces the grain of the wooden table with his fingertip. “I’ve been interviewing,” he admits. “But it feels… foreign.”
“How so?”
“I realized I defined myself by the firm, the title, the salary,” he says, his voice slowing as he searches for the truth. “Yesterday, they asked where I saw myself in five years. The old answer was ‘managing partner.’ The honest one was ‘awake.’”
I study the lines at the corners of his eyes. “That’s a big shift.”
He inhales, steady. “I don’t want to be the guy checking emails at the dinner table anymore. I want to live in moments, not deadlines. I want to find joy in the everyday.”
“Admirable,” I say, my voice calm though my heart flutters with cautious hope. “But habits are hard to break.”
He raises his gaze, unwavering. “I know. But I’ve lost too much to ignore the cost. I took you for granted, treated our life like a project, not a partnership. I don’t want to be that man again.”
The coffee burns down my throat. “I’m not expecting miracles,” I whisper. “I want to see if this… realness sticks.”
He nods, resolve in every line of his face. “I’ll prove it. However long it takes.”
“You can have a chance tomorrow,” I say. The offer hangs in the air, fragile but real. “Art Works selected a few of my pieces to showcase. Opening night starts at seven.”
He brightens. “I’d love to be there.”
Old Ross would have checked his calendar. He would have made a vague promise about “trying to make it,” only to show up late, texting as he walked in. This Ross smiles.
The walk back is nice. The afternoon sun pools on the pavement, and the neighbors’ rose bushes droop in the heat. We part ways at the property line, him to Elias’s, me to the house that still holds memories of our marriage.
I clutch the strap of my bag, my mind replaying a single moment: Ross holding my gaze, his phone forgotten in his pocket.
Up ahead, Ross turns down the short driveway to Elias's. I see him walking with a lightness I haven’t noticed in years. I linger at the curb, lingering on hope, when a sleek black sedan glides to a stop beside him.
My breath catches, Arthur’s car.
The rear passenger window rolls down. Arthur leans out, the cut of his suit impossibly sharp, the smirk at his lips unmistakable. Even twenty feet away, I feel the old, familiar dread coil in my chest.
Without thinking, I step behind a parked SUV, pressing my back to the cool metal bumper, heart hammering.
“Ross!” Arthur’s voice, smooth and insistent, carries across the asphalt. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Immediate partnership. It’s all yours if you come back.”
Ross’s dream. His obsession. The monument he poured years into.
He halts. His shoulders stiffen, his spine snapping straight like steel.
“Everyone makes mistakes in their personal life,” Arthur continues, his tone dripping with false sincerity. “Don’t sacrifice a legacy over a domestic squabble.”
Domestic squabble.
How small those words sound. How cruel. I hold my breath, waiting for Ross to hesitate, waiting for him to weigh walls of glass against the stained couch in Elias’s living room.
Instead, Ross reaches into his pocket.
He pulls out his phone, the screen lighting up his face. He taps it once, then glances back at the car.
“You know, Elias gave me access to all of his video files,” Ross says, his voice calm, carrying a terrifying finality. “Security footage from his porch. It'll clearly show you harassing a former employee from the street.”
Arthur’s smirk falters. “Put the phone away, Ross.”
“I told myself I wouldn’t use it,” Ross goes on, staring at the screen. “I told myself I wanted to rebuild my life without dragging the wreckage of the firm with me. I wanted to be better than you.”
“Ross,” Arthur warns, authority leaking from his voice.
“But then you called my wife a ‘domestic squabble.’” Ross looks up, eyes hard. “She isn’t a squabble. She is the only thing that matters.”
He taps the screen. Types a few things.
“That was to the Labor Board,” Ross says, holding the phone up. “I just forwarded the file, along with a formal complaint for harassment, and a recording of this very conversation.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I absolutely am.”
Ross turns his back on the sedan. On the money. On the glittering tower.
“Drive away, Arthur,” he says over his shoulder. “It’s over.”
Arthur stands frozen, mouth open, his power dissolving into the rumble of the idling engine. Ross doesn’t glance back. He strides toward Elias’s porch, toward the battered wood planks and splintered railing, walking away from millions and a name on a skyline.
My chest tightens, then lightens.
When Ross rounds the corner and disappears from view, I step out from my hiding spot. The sun feels warmer, the air crisper, my heart swelling with the knowledge that he didn’t just walk away. He fought back.