Margot looks at me, the weight of the past mingling with a hint of hope. “Ross, what does this mean now? For us?” she asks. “Are we talking about moving on, or something else?”
I take a breath. This is the responsible thing to do. The logical step.
“I found a small apartment,” I admit. “I’ll be moving out of Elias’s house next week. It’s a studio in the Arts District. I need to establish myself, to prove that I can stand on my own before I ask if there’s a future for us.”
I expect her to nod. I expect her to be relieved that I’m giving her space.
Instead, her body tenses. She stares at the water, her jaw setting in a way I haven’t seen in years.
“So you’re leaving,” she says flatly.
“No,” I counter, my voice steady. “I have to show myself, and you, that I’m making choices, not only reacting. I don’t want to rely on you for a roof over my head. I want to date you properly.”
“Date me properly,” she repeats, turning to face me. Her eyes are sharp, searching mine. “Ross, we tried ‘dating’ for five years. You took me to nice dinners, bought me flowers, and then you went to your office and hid.”
I flinch. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Isn’t it? You’re getting another box,” she says, her voice rising slightly. “First it was the glass office at Keane. Now it’s a studio apartment. You want to go over there, fix yourself up, present a polished version of Ross for coffee dates, and then go home to your safe space when things get messy.”
I open my mouth to argue, but the words die in my throat. She’s right. I am trying to curate this redemption.
“I don’t want a polished version of you,” she says, her voice softening, losing its edge. “I’m tired of the presentation, Ross. I want to know if you can handle the Tuesday nights when the sink is leaking and I’m cranky and the laundry is piled up. That’s where you failed us. You were never there.”
“I’m trying to protect you,” I whisper. “I’m a mess right now.”
“I know. And if you move to that apartment, you’ll hide that mess until you think you’re perfect again. And we’ll drift apart until we’re polite strangers who used to be married.”
She takes a deep breath, smoothing her coat over her knees. She looks terrified, but resolved.
“Don’t sign the lease,” she says.
My heart hammers against my ribs. “Margot?”
“Move back home,” she says. The words hang in the air, bold and fragile.
“You want me to move back in?”
“I want you to move into the guest room,” she clarifies quickly, setting a hard boundary. “We aren’t ‘back together.’ Not yet. I’mnot ready for you in our bed. But if we’re going to see if this works, I need to see you. Every day. I need to see if you can exist in the same space as me without disappearing into your work.”
She looks at me, her eyes clear and challenging.
“It’s a trial,” she says. “Six months. You fix the things you broke, like the sink, the porch, the trust. If it doesn’t work, you get the apartment. But don’t run away to the Arts District and pretend you’re fixing our marriage from across town.”
The weight of her proposal wraps around us. It’s not an olive branch; it’s a gauntlet. She’s asking me to do the one thing I’ve been terrified to do: be vulnerable in her space, with nowhere to hide.
“The guest room,” I repeat, testing the weight of it.
“The guest room,” she confirms. “And you cook.”
A laugh bubbles up in my chest, breaking the tension. “I can cook.”
“I know you can,” she says, a small smile finally breaking through. “I saw you make that pork chop. Even if it was cold.”
I realize she is offering me the hardest path, but the only one that leads home.
“Okay,” I say, the word feeling like an anchor dropping into the sand. “I’ll tell the landlord I’m out. I’m coming home.”
Chapter 24
