Innocent Was Not Enough

"I thought you were angry about Laya," Roman said. "I thought if I finished the agreement, I could come home and explain everything."

"I told you I needed help."

"I know that now."

"You knew it last night. You just thought it mattered less."

He breathed out slowly. "Yes."

I had expected a fight. His agreement left me with the hurt itself, and nothing to throw it against.

"Why didn't you tell me about the trust?"

"Because the arrangement was disgusting. Because my father spent years hurting people and I was still untangling it. I wanted to give you an ending, not another problem."

"So you gave me eight months of wondering whether my husband wanted somebody else."

He didn't answer.

"You knew what people said. You knew I heard them."

"I should have stopped it."

"You should have trusted me with the truth."

Maya got up quietly and moved Sophie's bassinet farther from the window. I watched her straighten the little blanket stored beneath it. The care in that small action made my throat close.

Roman asked where I was.

"Somewhere I can rest."

"Let me bring you home. I'll take Sophie. You can sleep all day."

I wiped my face with the heel of my hand.

He was offering what I'd asked for yesterday, as though he had found the delayed order and could still deliver it.

"I'm not coming home today."

"Erin, we've talked about Laya. There was nothing between us."

"There was plenty between you. A history. A secret. An agreement to keep me outside it."

"I meant there was no affair."

"I heard you."

His voice roughened. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Accept that I don't want to come home."

For the first time, I heard anger beneath the fear.

"You have our daughter."

"Our daughter is safe. I'll talk to you about seeing her when I've slept and thought about what happens next."

"I could take care of both of you."

"You could have last night."

Silence.

He said my name in the voice that used to make me stop whatever I was doing. Low, intimate, certain that he could reach me.

I stared at the wall until the impulse to soften passed.

"If I hadn't left," I asked, "would you be listening to me like this today?"

He didn't give me an answer.

I heard movement, a door closing, then his voice directed away from the phone.

"Not now, Marco."

My fingers tightened.

"Are you trying to find me?"

"No."

"Don't decide that coming yourself is different from sending someone. I'm asking you to leave us alone."

"For how long?"

"I don't know."

That was the answer he couldn't organize. There was no deadline, no person to pressure, no payment that would move it closer.

I told him what I needed. My passport. Sophie's documents. My work laptop. Access to the personal accounts his office managed without the questions that came whenever I made an unusual transfer.

"They're your accounts," he said.

"Then let me use them without someone calling you."

His breathing changed, but he agreed.

"I'll arrange delivery."

"Maya will collect them."

"You trust her more than me?"

The question came too quickly. He seemed to regret it before I answered.

"This morning, yes."

He was quiet for a long time.

Finally, he asked, "Are you going to divorce me?"

I looked at my wedding ring. My fingers were still swollen. The band had left a pale indentation below the diamond.

"I don't know. But I'm going to speak to someone who doesn't work for you."

"You don't need an attorney to talk to me."

"I need one to understand my own choices."

He started to speak, then stopped.

I could almost see him pressing his lips together. I'd watched him do it at meetings when someone gave him an answer he hated but couldn't change without making things worse.

I had never been that person before.

"I'll have everything ready," he said.

"Thank you."

The politeness hurt us both. I heard it in the way he said my name again.

"Do you still love me?"

I wanted to refuse the question. He shouldn't have been able to ask for that part of me while I was still gathering the rest.

But I wasn't leaving because I didn't love him. If it had been that simple, I might have slept better.

"Yes," I said. "I love you. I don't want to live with you right now."

His breath caught.

I ended the call before I could comfort him.

Maya sat beside me. I cried against her shoulder, not gracefully, until Sophie woke and needed to be fed.

There was something merciful about the interruption. My daughter did not need a decision about marriage. She needed a bottle, dry clothes, warm arms.

I could still do those things.

Three days later, I moved into a furnished townhouse belonging to Maya's cousin in Shorewood. Jenna helped during the first few nights. Maya came after work. I paid the rent myself.

The place had a narrow kitchen, a sofa with one uneven cushion, and a back window overlooking somebody else's fence.

There was no marble staircase. No private gate. No one outside to report which direction I drove.

I stood in the bedroom after we unpacked, holding the tiny cap Sophie had worn home, and cried because I missed my husband in a house that was easier to breathe in.

Roman sent the documents through Maya. He included my favorite sweater and the book I'd left open beside the nursery chair.

No jewelry. No flowers.

Inside the book was a sheet of paper.

I came home carrying a piece of birthday cake because I thought you'd forgive the hour if I brought you something. I stood in the nursery with it in my hand. I am ashamed of what I thought would be enough.

I read it several times.

Then I put it in a drawer.

It changed nothing practical. I still met with an attorney. I still arranged my own account access. I still woke alone for the night feedings.

But when Roman asked for a photograph of Sophie, I sent one.

His reply came a minute later.

Her eyes are opening more.

Yes, I wrote.

Then he sent:

I missed that.

I laid the phone beside me and watched our daughter stretch her tiny fingers toward the light.