She stiffens, her voice taut. “You’re saying you resented me for accepting something that validated years of my work? A blog that started as a silly dream and became one of the things I’m most proud of?”
I lift my hand.
“Before I go on... you need to hear this first. I know how absurd everything I’m about to say will sound. I know now these were only empty justifications.”
I draw a breath. “But what I’m about to tell you isn’t logic. It’s what I felt.”
“I didn’t understand why you needed that column.
In my mind, I was a good provider. I worked to stay on top. You knew that. You trusted me to invest everything you earned from the blog under your own name.”
I tighten my grip on the cushion, trying to stop the tremor in my hands.
“So I couldn’t understand why you would take a job that demanded more of you... for a salary that wouldn’t change anything for you or for our family.”
I drag a hand down my face.
“Again… I know how terrible that makes me sound. But that was how it felt. And I used it as another excuse to stay away. I felt more and more unnecessary at home... and instead of changingmyself, or finding new ways to be there, even when I didn’t feel needed...”
“I chose distance. Distance from you and the kids. All while telling myself I’d fix it later.”
I look down. “And then there was your name.”
“My name?”
“Yes. Your name. Not ours. Not the name I gave you after our marriage.”
“Colin... you’re not making any sense.”
“You always signed your blog asCecily Sterling. Never Montgomery. I never said anything because that was your world and I respected it. And honestly, after a while, I even stopped thinking about it. But then came a national—international—newspaper column.”
“And I kept using my maiden name,” she adds.
She lets out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Colin, you know the editor asked me to. The proposal came because of the blog. And even then, I had every right to use the name I chose. I didn’t take your name when we married to be marked as your property.”
“I know,” I say, shame flooding through my veins. “And again... they were just excuses I fed myself. I can see that clearly now.”
I hesitate before admitting the part that hurts the most.
“It felt like everything was piling up. You had your writing, your blog. Ethan always went to you first. And apart from Alicia... I felt unnecessary at home.”
I don’t lower my head, even when every part of me is begging to.
“I felt like even when you asked me to be home more, it wasn’t because you actually wanted me there… it was just habit.”
She looks me straight in the eyes, her voice calm as she says:
“Did it ever occur to you that your absence is what made you feel unnecessary? Your avoidance? That the only reason youthought I asked out of habit was because you had already made avoiding us a habit… especially in those last months?”
“I see it now. All of it… Whenever things didn’t go the way I wanted, or planned, or expected... my instinct was to force my will. And when that failed... I retreated. I didn’t realize I was opening a chasm every time I did.”
“An abyss,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. “An abyss that made me lose sight of the man I was supposed to be for my family. Of what truly mattered. It gave space to things I should have never said or done... things I should’ve never even allowed myself to think. And it was there... in that abyss... that I became the man I despise now.”
Ceci stands and turns her back to me, dragging her hands through her hair.
“I just—I just can’t believe how—”
“Stupid. Selfish. And disgraceful,” I supply.
