“I’ve been thinking about what the lawyer said—about how it would be best if we separated for a while.”
He starts to respond, but I shake my head and push on before he can.
“She’s right. There’s logic in it. This won’t go away while we’re living together all the time. People have decided there’s something to look at. They’ll keep looking until we give them a reason not to. Separating is the only way to end this.”
He doesn’t say no straight away, and that gives me enough courage to keep going.
“I would never choose to be apart. You know that. But this isn’t about what you or I want anymore. It’s a little time apart now, or we stay trapped in this house until they tire of our story.”
“How long?”
“Six months. Maybe less, if something else steals their attention. But I think we should plan for six.”
He looks at me. There’s something in his expression I almost never see—hurt, plain and undisguised.
“Six months,” he says. “That’s a long time.”
“It’ll feel like forever while we’re apart, but it’ll pass. And when it’s done, whatever the police think they’re looking at will either show itself or it won’t, and we’ll know where we stand. We make the sacrifice now so this stops. So they lose interest. Then we sell the house, take the yacht, and go wherever we want. Live however we want. By then, the world will have found something else to fixate on.”
“I stay here, and you go somewhere else?” He drags a hand over his face. “Where?”
“Somewhere quiet, where we’re not… a thing. Maybe New Zealand or Fiji. A place where people aren’t invested in us. Somewhere we might actually want to stay when this is over—not just wait it out. Maybe a home base between sailings.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t like it, Char. Not one bit.”
“I don’t like it either.”
“You’d be on your own, and I’d be here wondering if you were safe every second of every day.”
“Try framing it differently, like I’m not leaving. I’m just going ahead of you to find the place we will land when this is over.” I hold his eyes. “I’m not walking away from you, Dane. I’m setting something up for us.”
“That’smyjob—finding a safe place for us. That’s—” He cuts himself off and groans. “Fuck.”
“You’ve always made sure I was safe. Maybe now it’s my turn.”
I wait for him to tell me all the reasons this won’t work.
They never come.
“Let me do this for us. Let me find it, set it up, and have it ready for when you can come to me.”
He looks away for a moment, jaw tight, turning it over.
“I can do this, Dane. You know I can.”
“I know you can.” No hesitation. “You’re the strongest person I know. That’s not the issue.”
“Then let me do this for us and for what comes next.”
The silence stretches between us, but it isn’t empty. I can feel something shifting in him, settling. I don’t push. He needs to get there on his own.
“Six months,” he says.
Not a question. A decision.
“Six months,” I agree. “I won’t be far.”
“Where you are doesn’t matter if I can’t see you.”
