From friends who’d divorced their first wives for a newer model, as the cliché went, the sex was off the charts, they’d say, the tantrums worse, but worth it.
I experienced the former but not the latter.
Besides her age, Ember wasn’treallymy type. She was nerdy. She was quiet, living in her own world.
The women I spent time with were usually extroverts. They knew how to be the life of the party and were definitely aware of which side of a mascara wand was up.
But she doesn’t need makeup, does she? Five years and she still looks like she did, dewy-skinned, fresh, perfect.
The year we were together was a strange one for me. We didn’t advertise our relationship, mostly because I didn’t need the Stanford community, prone to gossip, to blow an affair between an older man and a younger student out of proportion, which could hurt her. That year, I didn’t attend parties as I had in the past. I didn’t go to restaurants much, either. We stayed home. Cooked.
There were times she thought she was my dirty secret. She never said it out loud, but I could see it in her eyes. I tried to show her otherwise—tried to prove it in every way except the one that mattered. The truth was, she wasn’t my dirty secret. She was my precious one. The part of my life I wanted to protect, to keep untouched by the noise of friends, family, and everything else that could taint something so good.
When I look back, that year with Em had been the first time since my divorce that my mind had cleared—and I’d begun to breathe again.
I felt guilty, still do, because I’d used Ember’s youth to heal my wounds, and in return had hurt her.
Butnow it was pretty clear that she’d put all of that in the past. The woman who smiled at me and talked to me didn’t carry that bruised look in her eyes, when I’d seen her the few times since we broke up.
So, then, why do I feel so bereft at the idea that she’s moved on?
Margot’s invitation to spend Christmas and New Year with them sounded harmless enough. My parents were off to Antarctica, and my brother was in Florida with his wife’s family—people I’d be tempted to throttle with my surgeon’s hands if they launched into another rant about how global warming was simply God punishing heathens.
I have no idea how he tolerates them, but then I also have no idea how he tolerated his wife. But they have a child, and he’s going to stick it out. Marchandmen do not leave their wives when they have children, which is why I’m glad that Olivia and I never procreated; no collateral damage to what a fucking war of magnificent proportions our marriage was.
I wanted to be respectful of Ember and discreetly enquired if she’d be joining the family. Previously, she’d missed the Chamonix trip because she had a doctoral deadline, and both Freja and Aksel thought that Ember wouldn’t join them this year, either, because she was knee-deep in research, which was why I accepted Margot’s invitation.
I’d worried when I first saw her that it would be uncomfortable for her to have me around, especially with Calypso.
She seems to be handling it just fine, Ransom. Em hasn’t even given you or Calypso a look beyond the perfunctory.
And for some reason, it’s bothering me.
I sigh inwardly. Not forsomereason. I know why. It hurts my ego that she’s over me so completely, while I still think about her, still remember our time together.
Even now, she’s hard to look away from.
Something unfurls inside me to see her, smell her, watch her eyes light up when she smiles, see how she rubs her fingers together when she’s unsettled, how she pushes her hair behind her ears when she’s listening to someone keenly, how she?—
“Your daughter seems very sensitive,” Calypso tells Margot after both Freja and Ember have left.
“Ember is very perceptive and feels things deeply.” Margot smiles fondly.
“She does think makeup is the enemy, though,” Aunt Tanya mutters.
“She’s just young, she’ll learn,” Calypso offers helpfully.
I don’t like her insinuation that Ember is somehow immature because of her youth. It’s hypocritical for me to feel that way.
Hadn’t I said something just as cruel to Ember that night at Chapeau in San Francisco? Called her immature?
I told myself I’d chosen the restaurant because it was far from Palo Alto, away from the usual crowd—neutral territory.
But that wasn’t the truth.
I’d picked Chapeau because I anticipated a scene. I didn’t want anyone I knew to see it happen, to witness me ending something real. I thought she might cry, argue, make it messy.
But she didn’t comply.
