He Gave My Bedroom to His Brother's Widow

When Nathan's brother Michael died, Nathan promised to take care of his widow, Leah.

The day Leah moved in, she cried by the sunny windows of our bedroom.

She sobbed that her husband would never see the sun again, and that I was so lucky to wake up to all that light every morning.

So that night, Nathan asked me to move into the study.

A few months later, the acquisition I'd been leading was ready for its final presentation.

At the celebration party, Leah fell apart, crying that everyone was moving on except her.

So Nathan asked me to give up the presentation I'd spent eight months working toward.

I loved Nathan, so I kept giving in. It never earned me his love. It only taught him to ask for more.

Even when Leah ran my transfer paperwork through the washing machine, all Nathan said was that I shouldn't accuse her without proof.

Fine. Then there's no reason for me to stay.

Leah can keep the project, the apartment, and Nathan, who always takes her side.

Nathan can keep his precious promise.

And I'll take my suitcase and get on a plane to New York.

————

The night we signed the letter of intent on the Hartwell acquisition, the firm threw a party at a hotel downtown.

I almost always showed up to company functions in a suit. When I took my seat, a colleague gave me an amused smile.

“Emma Carter, wearing a dress. For once, you don't look like you're heading into negotiations.”

Before I could reply, a commotion broke out by the entrance.

Leah stood in the doorway, dressed in white, her face drained of color. A bandage hung loosely around her wrist. The cut looked superficial, but there was enough blood on her fingers and sleeve for everyone to see.

She spotted me and started to cry.

“You must think I'm ridiculous, Emma. You've landed another huge deal, and I hear you're up for a promotion. Everyone else is getting on with their lives. I'm still living in the day Michael died.”

The room went silent.

Nathan got up from the head table and went to her. A server fetched a first aid kit. He sat Leah down in a chair and examined her wrist.

“Look at me,” he said softly. “Let's get this cut taken care of.”

“I can't go on like this.” She clutched his shirt. “I don't know how to live when he's gone.”

Once he'd made sure the cut wasn't serious, Nathan pulled me out into the hallway.

Leah was still crying on the other side of the glass doors.

“I'd like Leah to give the final presentation on the Hartwell acquisition.”

I thought, for a second, that I'd heard him wrong.

“I've been running that project for eight months.”

The due diligence, valuation, and risk negotiations had all been mine. The presentation was also where the executive committee would decide whether to promote me.

“I know. But she needs a way back into work. Since Michael died, she's had nothing to focus on. This might help her feel capable again.”

“And what about everything I've already done?”

He looked guilty.

“I'll owe you for this.”

There had been a time when I understood why saying no to her was so difficult for him.

Before Michael died, he'd held Nathan's hand and asked him to look after Leah. Nathan had promised. Eventually, that promise became the excuse for everything that happened in our apartment.

When Leah first came to live with us, she said typing reminded her of the machines at the hospital. Whenever I had to work late, I took my laptop down to the coffee shop in our building.

She couldn't stand the smell of steak, so steak—my favorite—disappeared from our table.

Then she cried beside the south-facing windows in our bedroom.

“The sun comes in here every morning. Michael will never have another morning, but Emma wakes up in all this light. She's so lucky.”

Nathan and I had planned to move into the guest room together.

But Leah woke up crying almost every night, and he was constantly getting up to comfort her.

So his trips down the hall at two in the morning wouldn't keep waking me, he asked me to move into the study—the room farthest from the master bedroom.

I watched him take my clothes out of the bedroom closet.

“She's the guest. Why can't she take the guest room?”

He rubbed his forehead. “Her husband just died. You can't expect her to think reasonably right now. Please don't turn the bedroom into another fight.”

The study became my makeshift bedroom. The folding bed was thin and lumpy, and most mornings I woke up with an aching back.

Leah was allowed to fall apart and ask for whatever she needed. Nathan thought I was the strong one, so I was supposed to hold it together.

Now he was standing in the hotel hallway, waiting for me to agree again.

I looked at the creases where Leah had grabbed his shirt. I didn't have the strength to make him understand what this would cost me.

“Okay.”

His expression eased.

“I know it isn't fair. Once she's doing better, I'll make this right.”

I didn't ask what that would mean.

The party broke up early, and we went home. During the night, Leah woke from another nightmare. She said Michael had come to her in a dream and blamed her for not living the life he'd wanted for her.

Nathan sat outside her door while she cried. At three in the morning, he knocked on the study door.

I was sitting on the folding bed, reading an email from our New York headquarters on my laptop.

He didn't glance at the screen.

“She's still having a hard time. I'll stay with her until she gets to sleep.”

“Go ahead.”

He frowned, as if he'd heard something bitter in it.

“Emma, I told Michael I'd look after her. She doesn't have anyone else.”

“I know.”

He studied me for a few seconds, as if he didn't know what to make of how calm I sounded.

“Let's talk tomorrow, when things are quieter.”

He shut the door and went back to Leah.

I returned to the email.

I'd sent in my application and sat through three rounds of interviews for the New York job. Nathan hadn't pulled a single string. He didn't even know I'd applied. If he had, I could already picture the job somehow turning into one more thing Leah needed to rebuild her life.

The last line said, “Please report to our New York headquarters no later than the thirteenth of next month.”

I accepted the offer. Then I pulled out my suitcase and started packing.

Through the wall, I heard Nathan soothing Leah.

I closed the case. I was taking the job in New York. And I was leaving Nathan.