“That’s what I did,” I say. “I let Rebecca become the scenery. She was right there in front of me every day—making breakfast, doing laundry, putting Emma to bed—and I stopped seeing her as a person who needed attention, care, presence. I stopped seeing her at all.” I look back down at Emma, at her rhythmicbreathing.In and out and in and out and in and out.“And by the end, before it all fell apart, she was lonely in a way that’s almost worse than being alone. Because at least alone, you don’t have to watch someone choose everything else over you.”
My throat closes up. I have to swallow hard and clear it before I can keep going.
“So yes, the cheating was her choice. Bringing someone into our home, into Emma’s life like that—that’s on her. But everything that led up to it? The disconnection, the isolation, the feeling invisible in her own relationship? That’s on me. I created the conditions where she felt like she had to look somewhere else to be seen.”
Outside, the rain intensifies, drumming against the windows. Annie hasn’t moved. She hasn’t looked away. And there’s something in her stillness that feels less like pity and more like she’s holding space for this, making room for the weight of what I’m trying to say.
“You can’t carry all of that yourself, Leo,” she says finally, her voice quiet.
“Can’t I?”
“She made her own choices. You didn’t force her to—”
“I know.” I cut her off gently. “I know she made her own choices. But I think I made it easy for her to make those choices. Or at least easier than it should have been.”
Annie doesn’t argue with that. She just lets it exist between us, this admission of failure that I haven’t said out loud to anyone except maybe Joe, and even then not in this much detail.
“Do you still love her?” Annie asks.
The question catches me completely off guard. I open my mouth and nothing comes out because the truth is, I haven’t let myself think about it. Between teaching and Emma’s constant meltdowns and the parade of nannies who have lasted less than a week, I haven’t processed much of anything from the last sixmonths. I’ve just been surviving. Crisis to crisis, fire to fire, hoping I don’t burn everything down in the process.
“That’s complicated,” I say finally.
“Most things are.”
“I don’t know if there’s a simple answer. I’ll always have feelings for her—she’s Emma’s mother. That’s a permanent thing whether I want it to be or not. But is it love?” I pause, trying to find something true. “No. I don’t think so. Not anymore. And it’s not just about what she did, though that certainly finished whatever was left. We stopped loving each other a long time before she walked out. We just didn’t want to face it. We didn’t want to admit we’d become two people living separate lives under the same roof, sleeping in the same bed, raising the same child, and somehow were still utterly, completely alone.”
Annie’s quiet for a long moment, and I can feel her thinking, processing. The rain continues its steady percussion against the windows.
“At least you’ve been in love,” she says finally, and there’s something wistful in it that catches me off guard.
She sighs, still not looking at me. Still winding that thread around her finger. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in love at all.”
That doesn’t make sense. She’s twenty-two. She walked away from everything to come here, which means there had to be something—or someone—she was walking away from.
“I was engaged before I moved here,” she says.
I raise an eyebrow. “You were engaged to someone you didn’t love? Why?”
“If you knew my parents, you’d know why.” She lets out a dry laugh, bitter and sharp.
I wait. I’m curious. More than curious, actually, and I want to understand, but I don’t want to push.
She takes a breath. “Our marriage was mostly arranged by our parents. Not in some archaic way, but close enough. They set up our first date. They made sure we kept seeing each other. They made sure everyone in their social circle knew we were together.” She’s pulling that thread tighter, her fingertip going white. “Daniel seemed perfect at first. He worked for his father’s company, made obscene amounts of money. He was handsome. Charming. Everyone loved him, knew him or wanted to know him.”
The way she says it—past tense, distant—tells me she’s describing a stranger.
“But he didn’t knowme,” she says, quieter now. “He never tried. He wanted to check off all the boxes—career, wife, kids, house. Multiple houses, actually.” She swallows. “He had no idea what I wanted to do with my life beyond being his wife. He couldn’t tell you what I was afraid of or what I dreamed about, that I wanted to be a journalist one day. He didn’t know what made me happy or what made me cry. My favorite childhood memory, why I left college, what I believed in, what shaped me into who I am—he had no clue about any of it. And I don’t think he wanted to know.”
Things you should probably absolutely know before getting down on one knee and proposing marriage to someone,I think.
“And he worked all the time,” she says. “When we went out, it was never just us. It was always some formal event. Dinner parties, galas, charity things.Networking, he called it. Like our whole relationship was just another opportunity for him to make connections.” Her voice gets an edge to it. “And he’d make these little comments in front of everyone, people whose opinions he cared about. He would tell me I should smile more because I looked too serious, or that I’d look better with my hair down. He would suggest I should watch what I was eating because my dress was getting snug.”
Something hot flares in my chest before I can stop it, and it’s anger, which is absurd. Completely ridiculous. Three weeks ago this woman was literally fighting me for a cab, physically trying to climb back into it while I dragged her out by her ankles. I’m pretty sure she still thinks I’m controlling and overbearing and possibly the worst person she’s ever met. But the idea of someone talking to her like that, diminishing her in public, making her feel small and inadequate in front of people, people she had to face again and again—what an asshole.It pisses me off in a way I wasn’t expecting, in a way that doesn’t really make sense given our history.
I don’t say anything, but I must make some kind of face because Annie glances at me quickly, then looks away.
I can’t wrap my head around it. This Daniel person got to date someone like Annie—actually got her to say yes to marrying him—and all he did was spend his time criticizing her? Women like Annie aren’t women you find every day just walking down the street, especially in New York City. I know I downplayed it when I was talking to Joe and Allison, but Annie’s drop dead gorgeous. Probably one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met, and that’s not an exaggeration. It’s a natural prettiness that doesn’t require maintenance or effort or three hours in front of a mirror with an arsenal of products. And there’s something about the way she carries herself, like she has absolutely no idea how attractive she is, that makes it almost refreshing. I’m convinced that if she knew, if she actually understood the effect she has on people, it would be completely unbearable to be around her. But she doesn’t know, so instead it just makes her more attractive somehow, which doesn’t even make sense but there it is.
