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Mara looked at him properly. “You drove all this way without knowing?”

“I drove all this way because I didn’t know what else to do.” His voice sounded tired rather than dramatic, and that made her believe him.

Mara set the breakfast box on the small table on the porch. “Then talk.”

Scott nodded, but for several seconds he said nothing. Mara had spent years watching him construct difficult conversations in his head before he spoke a word.

“The apartment feels wrong without you,” he said finally. “I know that isn’t enough, and I know missing you doesn’t fix anything. But I keep coming home and expecting you to be there. I keep finding things that belong to the life we had together. The coffee you always reminded me not to buy. Your sister’s birthday reservation still in my calendar.”

Mara lowered her eyes. None of those things were important, and every one of them was.

Scott rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I’ve been thinking about the whole eight years, not just the way things were at the end. That first apartment with the boiler that stopped working every winter. All those weekends when we didn’t do anything special and I never thought there would come a time when I would miss them.”

The memories rose easily because they belonged to Mara too. She had not hated those years. That was part of what made standing here so painful.

“That’s what I miss,” Scott said. “Us. But I’ve also realized how much of our life only worked because you were the one keeping track of it.”

Mara looked at him.

“We had plans because you made them. We saw people because you remembered. Birthdays happened because you kept track of them. There was food in the refrigerator and appointments in the calendar.” His mouth tightened briefly. “I got so used to you doing all of that that I stopped seeing how much of it there was.”

The words were what she’d wanted to hear. This was what she had wanted him to see. Her.

Not so long ago, she would have given anything to hear him say them, but now she could only wonder how so little time had passed and yet so much had changed.

Scott must have seen it in her face because he stepped forward slightly, then stopped. “I’m not saying that because I want you to come home and start doing it all again. I should have been doing more of it with you. I should have noticed before you had to leave for me to see what was happening.”

Mara swallowed. There were answers she could have given him, anger she had earned and a list of all the times she had asked for help. But none of that was the reason they had finally ended.

“What about children?” she asked.

Scott went very still. His gaze dropped briefly before returning to hers. “I’ve thought about that too.”

Her heart gave one painful beat. “And?”

“I still don’t have a perfect answer for you.” His voice had gone quieter. “I wish I did. I know what I said, and I know how final I made it sound. When you started talking about actually trying, about timelines and what it would mean for our lives, I panicked. It stopped being this thing we’d always said might happen someday. Suddenly it was real, and I was scared of changing everything.”

Mara stared at him. “You told me you didn’t want children.”

“I know.” Scott’s face tightened. “And that wasn’t fair. I should have told you I was scared instead of making the decision for both of us.”

For a moment Mara could hear nothing but the leaves moving overhead.

He had finally admitted it. Not that he wanted children, only that he had chosen for both of them.

Scott moved a little closer, although he left space between them. “I’m not asking you to believe I’ve solved everything in a week, because I haven’t. But I’m willing to talk about it properly. Counseling, if that’s what you want. Whatever we need to do so we actually make the decision together this time.” His voice roughened. “I don’t want eight years to end because I got scared and decided the answer before you had any say in it.”

Mara wished, fiercely and painfully, that he had said all of this before Bear Creek. Before Gabe. Before she had spent enough time away from their life to understand what had been missing from it.

Most of all, she wished he had said it while it could still have made a difference.

Scott reached toward her hand, then stopped before touching her. “I want us back, Mara.”

“I believe you.” She saw hope flicker across his face and hated that she was going to take it away almost as soon as it appeared. “I believe you miss me, and I believe you’re sorry. I even believe you mean it when you say you would try harder.”

Scott waited, and Mara forced herself to finish. “But I’m not coming back.”

For several seconds he only stared at her. “You just said you believed me.”