Page 60 of The Marriage Blunder

I went to Jude’s apartment on the Upper West Side at eight the next morning. He had already left, heading to his mother’s for the day, which made things easier.

The space was smaller than I expected, given his salary: a one-bedroom, well-maintained but not lavish, with a view of the park through glass that needed cleaning.

It was organized to the point of neurosis. Books were arranged by subject, then by author, then by size. Not a single knickknack or loose object on any surface, unless you counted the coffee grinder and the scale, which were always out, always plugged in.

The kitchen was functional, with a whiteboard on the wall covered in color-coded notes and mathematical jokes I didn’t get. The bed was made, hospital corners, no pillows but the two he actually used.

The clothes in the closet hung in a gradient: shirts to the left, jackets to the right, a full band of blue and white, the only color a single red sweater, folded and shelved with almost military precision.

I moved through the space, careful not to disrupt anything the team hadn’t already boxed. In the living room, I found a picture frame that must have been a relic from his childhood: Jude and his mother, years ago, both of them sunburned and laughing, arms full of groceries, a moment that did not look staged. He was ten or eleven, glasses too big for his face, hair already untameable. Clara’s expression was easier: joy, unguarded.

I took the photo from the shelf, wrapped it in a clean towel from the kitchen, and set it in the only box I carried down to the car myself.

Back at the penthouse, Adams had already cleared half the shelves in the study. He had also, as requested, moved the reading chair to the window, replaced the desk lamp with an upgrade, and stocked the coffee bar with the exact brand Jude preferred. The towels in the bath were the same blue as the sweater from Jude’s closet.

I had not noticed this until just then.

I opened the cabinet and found two mugs side by side. The one from my office, which Jude had always used, and a new one, same color, same weight. A detail only Adams would catch, but a detail all the same.

The boxes arrived at noon, and were unpacked by 2:00. Jude’s books filled half the study and all of the guest room shelves. His laptop found its place on the second desk without my intervention. The whiteboard ended up in the kitchen, mounted on the wall by the fridge, the markers set in a row below it, red, black, blue, and green.

When Jude arrived—his own key, as instructed, already on the fob with the rest—he made a circuit of the apartment, hands in his pockets, moving slow and careful, the way a man moves in a museum he’s not sure he wants to pay for.

He looked at the study, at the shelf space, at the chair by the window. He turned, looked at me, and said, “You moved the furniture.”

“The light’s better there.”

He stared at me, then at the chair, then back at me. I could see the math in his head. The cost of admitting he liked it, versus the cost of pretending he didn’t care.

He looked at the photograph on the wall behind the desk. I’d had it framed in black and hung where the sun would catch it around three in the afternoon.

His jaw worked, a complicated arrangement of muscle and memory. He pushed his glasses up, once, then again. “You didn’t have to do that.”

I said, “I know.”

He set his bag on the floor, sat in the chair, and looked out at the city. For a long time, he said nothing. The apartment filled with the sounds of ordinary life: traffic below, the hum of the fridge, a pigeon hitting the glass and rebounding without grace.

I stood at the edge of the room, not wanting to leave but not knowing what to do with my hands. In the end, I just watched.

He said, without turning around, “You’re really something, Kenneth James.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.

The sky outside was already darkening. The study was lit only by the lamp, the soft angle of the city glow, and the brightness off the clouds as the last of the day went to blue.

Jude sat in the chair, fitting it perfectly. He traced a finger down the armrest, almost absent-minded, like he was testing the grain. Then he looked at me, over his shoulder, and nodded. Just once.

I exhaled. I let my shoulders drop the last fraction of an inch. I crossed the room, stood behind him, and rested a hand on his shoulder. The contact was light, but it was enough. He leaned back, just slightly, into the space I made for him.

For the first time since the war started, the apartment felt less like a fortress and more like a home. And for the first time in a very long time, I was exactly where I wanted to be.

With him.

Chapter Thirteen

~ Jude ~

Kenneth’s penthouse, as it turned out, was even more terrifying in open-plan mode. The marble kitchen island had been transformed into a command center, every horizontal surface colonized by laptops, tablets, and the kind of cord management I thought only existed in CIA renderings.