Chapter 16
Isabella did not move back into our bedroom.
I did not ask.
Two years had changed both of us.
She took the east suite.
Lucy slept there the first week.
Sometimes Isabella woke screaming.
Sometimes I did.
The fire lived differently in each of us.
One evening, she found me in the memorial room after the urn had been removed.
Only her photograph remained.
“You kept it.”
I looked at the frame.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because that part was real.”
She understood.
The memorial had been built on a lie.
The marriage had not.
The child had not.
The photograph had not.
She sat beside me.
“I hated you for six months.”
“Fair.”
“I thought you chose Victor.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
Silence.
Then she added:
“But you chose trusting him without asking me enough questions.”
That was harder.
Also fair.
“I know.”
She looked surprised.
Maybe she expected defense.
I had none left.
Eventually she said:
“I don’t know if we go back.”
I looked at her.
“We don’t.”
Her face tightened.
Then I continued.
“We go forward or nowhere.”
She smiled faintly.
That was the first real softness between us since her return.
Not reconciliation.
May you like
Possibility.
Enough.
