“I took some time.Reassessed.”
“You moved to Texas.”
“I moved to Texas.”
“And now you want back in.”
“I want back in differently.”
“Well, your timing’s good.Hargrove called last week.Said they won’t re-sign unless you’re on the account.”
That is not entirely unexpected news.The offer, on the other hand, is.Not a desk on the thirty-second floor.Not three doors down from David’s office.A remote position.Build out the agency’s presence in the South.Texas, specifically.Work from home.My home.The farmhouse with the soundproofed basement and the man chained to the column and the handyman who can’t stop showing up.
“It’s yours if you want it,” David says.
I want it.Not because of the money or the title or the view I won’t have.Because it means I don’t have to come back here.I don’t have to walk these halls and pretend I’m the woman who left.I don’t have to sit three doors down from David and wonder when the mask will slip.
“I’ll take it,” I say.
We shake hands.I walk out.Take the elevator down.Step onto the street and feel New York hit me the way it always does—loud, fast, indifferent.A city that doesn’t care if you leave and barely notices when you come back.
I see her from half a block away.
Vanessa.
She’s coming out of a coffee shop on the corner.She’s showing—five months, maybe six.She’s wearing a coat that doesn’t button anymore and she’s holding a decaf latte and she sees me the same moment I see her.
We stop.The sidewalk moves around us like water around two rocks.
“Marin,” she says.
“Vanessa.”
She looks good.Tired but good.The kind of tired that comes from growing a person inside you and not sleeping and wondering where the father is.I know what that wondering looks like.I’ve been managing the answer to it for weeks.
“How are you?”I say.Because that’s what you say to the woman your boyfriend left you for when you’re both standing on a sidewalk pretending the world isn’t insane.
“I’m fine.”She’s not fine.“Charles is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Left.Disappeared.Three weeks ago.No call.No text.No note.”She takes a sip of her latte.Her hand is steady.“I should be surprised, but I’m not.You know how he is.”
I know how he is.I know exactly how he is.I know how warm he prefers his toast and how he eats gummy bears during depositions and how he looks when he’s chained to a column in a basement watchingThe Notebookon a laptop balanced on an overturned crate.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be.He was never all the way in.I just thought—” She stops.Puts her hand on her stomach.“Doesn’t matter what I thought.”
“Who knows,” I say.“Maybe he’ll turn up.Charles always did have a way of surprising people.”
I mean it.Every word.Because I’m going home and I’m going to unlock those cuffs and open that door and let him walk out.Not for Charles.Not for Vanessa.For me.Because the truth is staring me in the face.Because when you know, you know.Because I’m done holding on with my teeth.
Vanessa almost smiles.“Take care of yourself, Marin.”
“You too.”
She walks away.I watch her go—the coat that doesn’t button, the latte, the belly, the life she’s building without the man I’ve been keeping in a basement.She’ll be fine.She was always going to be fine.Vanessa is realistic.That’s her gift.
