Jace blinked once. “I’m sorry. I didn’t check before I got here.”
Vanessa looked him over. “You look really good.”
“Thanks. You do too.”
They stood together like people who knew how to pose and had forgotten how to stand.
There would have been comfort between them once. Maybe there still was, in some shape I didn’t have the right to judge. But not enough. Not tonight. She wanted him beside her in the version of their life that photographed well. He was trying to remember the steps.
My phone rang.
Olivia.
For one ugly second, I considered letting it go.
Then Vanessa touched Jace’s sleeve, and he looked down at her hand like he didn’t know what to do with being claimed in public by someone he was failing in private.
I answered.
“Hey,” I said, stepping into the side corridor.
“Hi,” Olivia said. “Bad time?”
“I’m at the fundraiser. It’s loud, but I can talk.”
“I’ll be quick. My Thursday flight is a mess again, so I may not land until Friday morning. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“I know. I just...” She exhaled. “I wanted to be there this time.”
I looked through the open ballroom doors.
Jace stood with Vanessa near the sponsor wall, smiling for a photo he did not want. Roman watched from beside the auction table. Tessa watched Roman. The room was full of people seeing pieces of a thing none of them could name.
“It’s all right,” I said. “The kids are having a good night.”
“That’s good.” A pause. “How are you?”
The question should have been easy.
It wasn’t.
“Tired,” I said.
“Yeah. Me too.” Her voice changed slightly, quieter under the restaurant noise on her end. “I miss knowing what your days look like.”
Guilt landed hard and cold.
“I miss telling you,” I said.
And that was true.
That was the damage of it. Nothing was clean. I had not stopped caring about my wife. I had not stopped knowing the sound of her exhaustion or the way she went quiet when she wanted to ask for more than she thought she should. There was no simple villain in this. Just distance, neglect, and now something I had no honest way to excuse.
“I’ll call after dinner if it’s not too late,” she said.
“Okay.”
