Chapter Two

On the way I detoured to buy two coffees. Walking back into the room, through the crack of the barely-closed door, I heard voices.

"Daddy, the battleship LEGO Auntie Maya gave me is so cool!"

It was Noah's voice — and the throaty rasp that was supposed to come from "severe asthma" was now bright and clear with excitement. "You go see her. I'll play the patient really well. Mommy won't go anywhere."

"Good boy." Ethan laughed softly in praise. "If you pull this off tonight, Auntie Maya and I will take you to the amusement park. Deal?"

"Deal!"

Crack.

A bone-deep winter went straight through my chest.

Even out there by the fire door — even hearing Ethan's affair, hearing him humiliate me with two rings for two women — even then, all I'd felt was disbelief and heartbreak.

But now I was hearing, with my own ears, the child I'd carried for ten months, the child I'd nearly died to bring into this world, call another woman "Auntie" without a flicker of guilt — and coolly form an alliance with his father, treating me as nothing more than a fool to be stalled and managed.

The agony crystallized into a sharp, freezing cold. It froze me solid.

I forced down the cramping in my stomach and slowly pushed the door open.

The father and son on the bed froze.

Noah was quick — he stuffed the LEGO instructions under the blanket, and the excited little face collapsed instantly into a sickly hunch of the shoulders and two loud, hacking coughs.

A flash of panic — of something like guilt — crossed Ethan's face.

He tested the water: "Bella… you're back already? Did you… hear anything out there?"

I stood there holding the steaming paper cups of coffee, meeting his appraising stare, my face blank.

"Hear what?" I looked at him. "An ER doctor saying new patients are coming in?"

Ethan let out a long breath. And his eyes switched back — right back — to that mask of the devoted, exhausted husband.

"Nothing. I was just telling Noah how hard you work taking care of him."

He walked over and took the coffee from me, setting it on the bedside table. Then, like a man rehearsing a routine he'd run a thousand times, he dropped into a half-kneel and drew a black-ribboned velvet box from his suit's inner pocket.

"Darling." He looked intently into my eyes and opened it slowly. "Our seventh anniversary was a few days ago. But Noah's been sick, and we haven't managed so much as a proper dinner together. I know you've never cared about expensive things — only about sincerity. But I still wanted to make it up to you."

Inside the box: the cheapest, plainest band. No diamond. No engraving.

I knew the other ring — the one with the pink diamond — was in his other pocket, waiting for another woman.

Ethan took my right hand. His voice was tender. "Just like we promised each other in that broken-down apartment. You'll always be my only one."

"Wowww—" From the bed, Noah produced a perfectly-timed gasp of wonder, his childish voice dripping with sham. "Daddy's so romantic!"

Before today, I would have wept with gratitude and thrown my arms around them both.

Now, watching this polished two-man act, I only felt sick.

I didn't move. I just watched him slide the silver band onto my ring finger.

"It's beautiful." I tugged at the stiff corners of my mouth into a smile with no warmth in it at all. "Thank you, Ethan. It really suits me."

My oddness threw him for a moment.

He frowned slightly, scanning my cold face, about to say something else — when the phone in his pocket suddenly rang.

He glanced at the screen, and his expression changed. He turned to me, a little rushed: "Bella, you don't look well. Get some rest early."

"I'm going to the office to work late — I won't disturb your meditation."

He picked up his jacket as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and kissed my forehead.

"Alright." I didn't flinch or dodge. I looked at him calmly. "Go. You're busy."

Ethan, reprieved, walked briskly out of the room.

The instant the door shut, the air in the room seemed to be drained out completely.

In the silent room, only Noah and I were left.

I walked to the bedside and sat down, and looked at the child on whom I had spent every drop of myself.

Noah was clearly spooked by the coldness in my eyes.

He started coughing theatrically again. "Cough, cough… Mommy, my chest still hurts so much. You'll stay here with me the whole time, right?"

I didn't comfort him the way I always had. I just looked at the corner of the colorful LEGO instructions peeking out from under the blanket.

"Noah." I cut off his performance softly, my voice colder than I recognized as my own. "Look me in the eye and answer me."

He stopped coughing. He looked at me uneasily.

"Did your chest actually hurt tonight?"

Noah's eyes flickered.

Under the blanket, his small hand clenched hard around those LEGO instructions. For a full few seconds.

But in the end, he chose to lie to me.

"It hurt!" He raised his voice a little, as if volume could cover for a guilty conscience. "It hurt so much! I could barely breathe! Good thing Daddy rushed me to the hospital and bought me LEGO to cheer me up…"

I closed my eyes slowly.

When I opened them, something in me had gone out completely — for good. For this seven-year marriage, for this child, I felt nothing anymore. Not a flicker of warmth.

I stood up. I didn't press him further. I just smoothed the blanket flat for him.

"If it hurts, go to sleep."

I turned around, and with the cold light from the corridor slanting in through the blinds, one thing rose to the surface of my mind with perfect clarity: the company email I'd set aside yesterday.

The group had a development program at its London headquarters. It meant three years abroad.

I'd never been able to commit to it — for my husband, for my son.

Now I had nothing holding me back.