“You didn’t file.”
“No.”
Relief flashed across her face.
I let it last.
“Yet.”
Her eyes filled.
“Mark, please.”
That was the first please.
The word should not have mattered.
It did.
Maybe because I had spent months begging her for ordinary honesty without ever hearing the same desperation in her voice.
“Where did you go tonight?” I asked.
Claire stared at the floor.
“Evan’s.”
“His house?”
“Yes.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
Silence.
“Claire.”
“Yes.”
I nodded.
She began crying.
“I told you I was going.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“I wasn’t hiding tonight.”
“That’s true.”
I looked toward the receipt.
“You were hiding before tonight.”
She covered her face.
“We need time.”
“I agree.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“I know.”
I stood.
Claire stood too.
“You cannot just walk out of a twelve-year marriage.”
She said it almost angrily.
I looked at her.
“You walked out four hours ago.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I was coming back.”
There it was.
The part I would remember longer than the confession.
She had always planned to return.
Not because she had chosen the marriage.
Because she assumed the marriage would remain where she left it.
“I know,” I said.
That frightened her.
“You knew?”
“I know now.”
She stepped around the table.
I raised one hand.
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
Not because I threatened her.
Because she finally realized I did not want physical comfort from the person causing the pain.
Her face crumpled.
“You don’t even want me touching you.”
“Not right now.”
“Are you going to divorce me?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means yes.”
“It means I don’t know.”
“Mark.”
“I need to leave.”
Then her phone buzzed.
We both looked toward her purse.
Claire froze.
It buzzed again.
She picked it up.
Evan’s name appeared on the screen.
She declined the call.
Ten seconds later, a message arrived.
Claire read it.
Her entire expression changed.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
I laughed once.
Nothing.
Again.
Months of nothing.
“Work?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
“It doesn’t matter.”