Chương 14
Daniel looked at her.
“I never planned it.”
“I know.”
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying you know.”
Madison almost smiled.
“Runs in the family.”
Daniel laughed through tears.
It made everything worse.
He stood.
“Do you think you could ever forgive me?”
Madison considered the question.
“Yes.”
Hope returned.
She lifted a hand.
“That is not the same as coming back.”
He looked down.
Madison walked to the refrigerator and took the save-the-date card from him.
She put it in the box labeled KITCHEN / ARGUE LATER.
Daniel watched.
“Why are you keeping that?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded.
For once, he did not demand an answer.
When he left, Madison sat on the kitchen floor and cried for forty minutes.
Claire waited outside the door until Madison called her in.
Elena moved into a furnished apartment three weeks later.
Richard hated it.
He paid for nothing.
That was Elena’s condition.
Madison helped carry two lamps up three flights because the elevator was broken.
Elena had bought them at a home store herself.
They were ugly.
Madison told her.
“I like them.”
“They look like hotel lamps.”
“They were forty dollars.”
“That explains it.”
Elena smiled.
They assembled a bookshelf badly.
Halfway through, Madison realized they had attached one panel backward.
Elena stared at it.
Madison said, “Richard would have a stroke.”
“Good.”
They left it backward.
Neither mentioned Daniel for almost an hour.
Then Elena found a loose pearl in the pocket of an overnight bag.
She froze.
Madison was sitting cross-legged on the floor with an Allen wrench.
Elena held the pearl between two fingers.
“I thought they collected all of these.”
Madison looked at it.
“Apparently not.”
Elena sat on the floor.
“I hate them.”
Madison nodded.
Elena placed the pearl on the windowsill.
“You can throw it away.”
“I know.”
Neither moved.
Outside, traffic crawled below.
Somebody across the street was unloading groceries.
A dog barked from another apartment.
Elena said, “He wrote to me.”
Madison’s hand stopped.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“What did he say?”
“He apologized.”
Madison stared at the backward bookshelf.
“Did you answer?”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
“No.”
Madison looked at her.
Elena’s face was tired.
“There’s something else,” Elena said.
Madison waited.
“I loved him.”
Madison closed her eyes.
There were moments when honesty became selfish simply because it was true.
Elena seemed to know that.
“I’m sorry.”
Madison opened her eyes.
“Don’t tell me that to make yourself feel clean.”
Elena flinched.
Madison continued.
“You don’t get clean from this.”
“I know.”
“Neither do I.”
Elena nodded.
Madison looked at the pearl on the windowsill.
“I loved him too.”
They sat with that.
Two women loving the same man was the sort of fact cheap stories liked to turn into rivalry.
In real life, it was mostly embarrassing.
There was no prize.
No winner.
Only two people who had trusted different versions of Daniel Reeves and discovered the versions overlapped in ways neither wanted.
Madison picked up the Allen wrench.
“Your shelf is crooked.”
Elena looked at it.
“It’s modern.”
“It’s structurally unsafe.”
“You sound like Richard.”
Madison stared at her.
Elena covered her mouth.
Madison threw a packing peanut.
Elena laughed.
Madison laughed too.
Then both went quiet.
It was not forgiveness.
It was something smaller.
Permission to remain in the same room.
Richard and Elena began seeing a couples counselor.
Richard told Madison this as if confessing to a misdemeanor.
She looked at him across the table at a diner.
“You’re embarrassed.”
“I’m not.”
“You lowered your voice.”
“I’m discussing private information.”
“You once announced your colonoscopy results at Thanksgiving.”
Richard frowned.
“That was medical.”
Madison smiled into her coffee.
Richard looked at the menu.
“She says I manage conversations.”
“The therapist?”
“Elena.”
“Oh.”
“The therapist agrees.”
Madison nodded solemnly.
“A shocking coalition.”
Richard gave her a tired look.
He had become more tired over the previous month.
The company video controversy had faded when the internet found newer people to hate, but several articles remained online. Richard still refused to explain publicly.
Madison asked, “Do you resent her?”
“For the affair?”
“Yes.”
Richard looked through the diner window.
A delivery truck blocked half the view.
“Yes.”
“Do you hate her?”
“No.”
“Do you believe her about Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Does that make forgiving the affair easier?”
“No.”
Madison nodded.
“Good.”
He looked at her.
“Why is that good?”
“Because it would be suspicious if you turned into a saint at sixty-six.”
Richard laughed.
The waitress refilled their coffee.
He waited until she left.
“Do you hate me?”
Madison stirred cream into her cup.
“For what?”
“Pick one.”
She looked at him.
That was almost a joke.
Almost.
“I hated you for making Daniel feel like he had to fight you to be with me.”
Richard nodded.
“I hated you for making my wedding into a battlefield.”
Another nod.
“I hated you for tearing Elena’s dress.”
His eyes lowered.
“I hated you for being right about him for reasons that had nothing to do with why you disliked him.”
Richard looked at her.
“And now?”
Madison drank her coffee.
“Now I’m tired.”
He smiled sadly.
“I can work with tired.”
“That sounds like something you would say in a board meeting.”
“It is.”
She rolled her eyes.
Richard reached for the sugar, then stopped.
“Madison.”
“What?”
“I am proud of you.”
She closed her eyes.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not doing anything brave. I’m filling out cancellation forms and arguing with a rental company about napkins.”
“You left someone you loved because staying would have been easier in the short term.”
Madison looked at him.
“That is not easy.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
Richard stirred his coffee.
Madison watched him.
For most of her life, she had assumed becoming independent meant becoming unlike him.
Now she understood that independence was less dramatic.
May you like
It meant being able to hear Richard say something true without obeying him.
It meant being able to hear him say something wrong without needing Daniel to prove it.
