All that’s left is to leave the bedroom.
Ross is standing in the hallway. His face is a map of regret, but all I see is the man who brought another woman into the most sacred space we had left.
“Where are you going?” he asks, his eyes falling to the bag in my hand.
“To a place where nobody calls me by someone else’s name.”
I walk past him. And as I do, I don’t brush against him. Don’t even glance backward. Keep moving. Keep going. Through the kitchen, past the cold lamb and the congealed wine, past the lemons in the bowl.
The front door is heavy, solid, yet I easily open it, stepping out into the biting February air.
Across the street, I see a light on in Elias’s kitchen. I wonder if he’s still up, baking the bread that makes his house smell like a home. I wonder if he’s looking out the window, watching the architect’s wife walk away into the dark.
I get into my car and toss the bag onto the passenger seat. My hands are shaking again, but I grip the steering wheel until the pain brings me back. I start the engine, the roar cutting through the neighborhood.
As I pull out of the driveway, I catch a glimpse of Ross opening the front door and staring in the rearview mirror. In the doorway, he’s framed by the warm glow of the house he designed.
He looks like a man who just realized that the most beautiful structure in the world is useless if there’s no one left inside to keep the lights on.
I turn the corner, and he’s gone.
Chapter 4
Ross
The red phantom of my wife’s taillights bleeds into the dark and vanishes around the corner. The house, the one I designed with such arrogance, is suddenly merely wood and glass. A cold home dedicated to a marriage I didn’t realize I was starving for until it died.
Frantically, I sprint back to the kitchen to grab my phone. My hands are shaking so badly I have to use both thumbs to unlock the screen.
I dial Margot.
It rings. Once. Twice. Three times. Voicemail.
“Margot,” I say to the recording, my voice a ragged croak. “Please. I need to know you’re safe.”
I hang up. I wait thirty seconds. I dial again.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Voicemail.
“Pick up,” I whisper. “Please, pick up.”
I call again. A fifth time. I am a man possessed, my thumb hitting “redial.”
On the seventh try, the ringing stops abruptly. The line connects.
“Margot?” I gasp, clutching the phone like a lifeline. “Margot, thank God. I—”
“Stop calling.”
Her voice is unrecognizable. It isn’t angry. It isn’t sad. It is dead.
“I need to talk to you,” I plead. “Please, five minutes. I can explain. I can fix this.”
“There is nothing left to fix,” she says. “Do not call me again, Ross. Leave me alone.”
“Margot, wait,”
The line clicks.
