Emil The name on my phone screen makes everything inside me go totally, utterly still. She got my email. She’s calling. I let the phone ring once, twice, three times. When I answer, my heart hammers so hard I need to brace myself against my desk. “Dani.” A soft exhale. “Hi, Emil. How are the kids?” My heart clenches so hard it hurts. Still, after the way I treated her, she cares about my kids. “They’re good. Talia started school last week and Francis is in daycare. They love it. Talia aced her first math quiz.” “That’s good,” she whispers. A messy lump in my throat makes it hard to swallow. “They miss you.” A pause, then, “I miss them too.” Soft words, as if it hurts to speak them out loud. It takes all my strength to push past the weight on my chest, but I need to tell Dani how I feel. I need to apologize for everything, to make her understand that I don’t hate her. Not at all. Never. “I went through the documents. Had my engineers go through them too.” “Oh. Okay.” Walking across my office to close the door, I pad back to my desk and drop into the chair. Tammy is sitting at her desk, she glances at me through her thick-rimmed glasses, then goes back to her computer screen. I clear my throat. “Thank you for sending those through.” “You’re welcome.” “It took a lot of courage to put yourself on the line like that.” “It did.” These one- or two-word answers are killing me. I want the light, the laughing Dani. I want the affection that goes bone-de ep to sing through her voice. I want her sitting on my lap with her arms around my neck. “I’m sorry,” I say. A pause. “For what, exactly?” “For that night at Bonnie’s place. I was out of line.” “Yes.” “I didn’t let you speak. I barged in there without ever giving you the chance to explain yourself. My engineering team explained the test results to me—they say the flaws in the Gleeson engines came from fundamental design principles. There was no way they could have been fixed.” “I know.” “You asked him to pull out of the deal to help me.” My voice is a rasp, a rough whisper filled with shame and sorrow and a pleading need for her to forgive me. “I didn’t ask Richard to pull out of the deal,” Dani says with a clear voice, as if this conversation isn’t difficult for her at all. “I asked him to tell you about the fraudulent test results. He assured me he’d fixed the problems with the design, so I told him it shouldn’t be a problem to tell you about the issues and prove that they’d been fixed. I wanted you to have all the information before you signed a contract.” I exhale, closing my eyes. This woman... I don’t deserve her. She didn’t even try to get Gleeson to pull out. She still wanted to give me the choice. She was ready to let me make this deal, to have her ex-boss and ex-boyfriend in our life if I wanted to go through with it.
And I... I said all those things to her. I accused her of betraying me, of lying to me, of manipulating me. “Forgive me,” I croak. “Please, Dani, forgive me.” The seconds that tick by kill me, but I finally hear a soft, rasping sigh. “I do. I understand your anger.” “Come home.” This pause is longer. I can almost imagine Dani sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, two frown lines marring the space between her brows. Holding my breath, I wait for her to tell me that everything will be okay. That she’ll come back to me. That she’ll let me love her the way she deserves to be loved. “I can’t, Emil.” A death blow. If I weren’t sitting down, I’d collapse. “I appreciate your apology, and I forgive you, but I can’t be with you. My home isn’t with you.” “W-what?” “I can’t be with a man who will always compare me to his dead wife. No matter what you say now, Emil, you’re still living in Callie’s shadow. You’re still seeing her crimes at every turn. I’m not perfect. I’ll make mistakes. I’ll make you angry, and you’ll think of her. You’ll hold her mistakes over my head and beat me with them even when you think you aren’t doing it. It won’t work. You’ll never trust me the way I need to be trusted. There will always be that sliver of distance between us, that hurt that’s too de ep to heal.” “Dani—” “There’s nothing you can say to change my mind. I... I loved you, Emil. You showed me love when I needed it most. I’ll always thank you for that.” “Dani, please.” I bite back a sob, eyes wide as I stare at nothing. She’s breaking up with me. She’s serious. “Goodbye, Emil.” A breath, followed by a soft click. I stare at my phone, blinking, horror sinking de ep into my core. I lost her. I lost Dani. I yelled at her, accused her of awful things, and I pushed her away. She’s right to have left me, but it hurts so much I can barely breathe. I can’t acc ept this. I won’t acc ept it. My hands tremble as I dial Dani’s number again, but it goes to voicemail. She turned her phone off—or she blocked me. No. No, no, no. I can’t lose her like this. Pushing my chair back so hard it slams against the wall, I stalk out of my office. “I’m out of touch for the rest of the day,” I tell Tammy without looking back, then rush out of my office building. I go straight to Bonnie’s place. I ring the buzzer, but no one answers. I mash the button again and again while I hold my phone to my ear, but there’s no response to either. Breath coming in short, sharp gasps, I stare at the stream of people passing me by. I need to fix this. I need to fix this. I can’t lose her, not like this. Loosening my tie, I try to gulp down a breath. Think. I need to think. My feet take me back to the car, and it’s not until I’m inside my quiet apartment and standing in front of a locked door that I take a full breath. The library in the penthouse has been locked for nearly three years. It was Callie’s favorite room, where she did her work and snuck away when she needed time to herself. The day she died, I closed the door and vowed to deal with it later.
Well, later has arrived. The most disused key on my keyring slides smoothly into the lock and I turn it, ignoring the thrumming in my chest. I push the door open and am greeted with a familiar—if slightly dusty—sight. To the right, bookcases lined with thousands of books cover the wall from floor to ceiling. Callie’s corner desk is on the opposite side of the room, near the windows. A thick layer of dust covers her computer monitor. As I walk toward it, I run my fingers along the back of her favorite armchair, touching the throw she used to wrap around her legs on cold winter evenings. I loved Callie. I loved her so much her betrayal shattered me. Standing in this room, I do a slow circle and let the memories wash over me one after another after another. We met when we were young, and Callie was as glittering and brilliant as a jewel. Sophisticated, funny, and charming, she was the perfect woman for me. Or so I thought. I’m not sure when things went wrong. I walk to the desk, grabbing an old fountain pen Callie used to adore. I sink into her chair and glance out the window, releasing a long, painful breath. She wasn’t supposed to die. Even when I asked her for a divorce, I wanted her in my life, in my kids’ lives. I was ready to fight her with all the bitterness of my heart, but I didn’t want her to die. Pulling open the top drawer of her desk, I flick through a stack of papers. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I don’t know how to let go of the hurt she caused. I don’t know how to fix this. The second drawer is full of stationery. Pens roll around against each other. I reach in and pluck out her wedding ring, staring at the glittering diamonds lining the band and feeling nothing but a roaring void inside. She must have taken it off that morning. The third drawer has a leather-bound journal. I flip it open and frown when I see a date in the top corner in Callie’s swe eping, round handwriting. Glancing at the fountain pen, I exhale and close my eyes. I didn’t even know Callie k ept a journal, but it doesn’t surprise me. She loved old pens, old books. She loved the idea of writing an autobiography when she was silver-haired and settled. I flip through the book, heart clenching when I read the details of our marriage. How much it hurt her that I worked so often, that I didn’t appreciate her. How she tried to get my attention. Acted out. Then retreated. How she just wanted me to notice her and love her how I used to. Acid lines my throat. I’ve always blamed Callie’s tantrums, her bitterness for the end of our marriage. But of course, of course my actions would be partially to blame. When I flip to the last page, the hurt inside me constricts, painful and harsh. He told me he wants a divorce, Callie wrote. I guess it makes sense, after everything I’ve done. Up until he said the words, I thought I wanted one too. I’ve been so trapped in this life. So hemmed in by this society, by the gossiping women and incessant rumors. I want out. I want to live the life I choose. I can’t be with a man who expects me to stay home with the kids and be his perfect little housewife all the time. He doesn’t see me. He forgets that I studied business and communications, that I had a career before we got married.
My anger makes me say awful, petty things. I threaten and rage and tell him I want to take everything from him. And I do. I want to take it all, just to feel like I got something from him. So maybe he’ll look at me as something other than just his little wife who waits for him and waits on him. A frown draws my brows down. I rub my thumb and forefinger over my heart, trying to ease the pain there. She felt trapped? Since when? And I... I didn’t just see her as my little housewife... did I? I don’t regret having kids. I love Talia and Francis with all my heart. I never thought I had a motherly bone in my body until I gave birth to my little girl—but I want more from life. I can’t stay here like this, in this house with nowhere to go but brunches and fundraisers. I’m drowning. I want a career. I want a life. I want to be the type of mother my kids are proud of. How can I be that woman when I’m running around drinking vodka at noon and being a bitter, vindictive woman to my husband? I need space. I don’t like the person I’m becoming. I’ll stay with my mother tonight and try to figure something out, try to build my life from the ground up. I need to fix myself before I break another relationship, damage someone else I used to care about. That’s where the journal ends. I flip through the remaining pages, finding only blank sheets staring back at me. She died after writing those words. I only realize I’m crying when a tear drops on the desk beside the journal. Wiping the tears away with my tie, I stand up, only to sit down to read that last entry again. Then I brace myself, and start at the beginning. This particular journal starts right before Francis was born. Callie talks about her pregnancy, about how difficult it was with Francis compared to Talia. How her body seemed to give out, how she didn’t feel like she’d make it through. And I wasn’t there for her. I was working, trying to fill my father’s shoes at the company. Working on my own ambitions, thinking Callie was happy to be at home. How could I have missed this? I didn’t know she had postpartum d epression and anxiety. That, for the first two weeks of our son’s life, she woke every ten minutes to make sure Francis was breathing. We were sle eping apart at that point, which was fine by me. I’d checked out of the relationship. I thought all she cared about was shopping and society. She’d come home, fling bitter words at me, and I’d lock myself in my office. I didn’t know Callie was suffering so much. All her threats to take my company, to take the kids—she hated herself for making them. When I think about what I did to have these kids, I feel nothing but shame, she wrote. I know it was wrong for me to damage our condoms, to tell Emil I couldn’t be on the pill. But he was so sure he didn’t want kids that every time I’d bring it up, he’d shut down. In my twisted brain, it felt like the only option. I’ll never regret it. My little girl is the light of my life. I thought she’d be enough to bring us together as a family, but Emil only seemed to drift away. Under a calm exterior, my emotions rage. Blinking, I clear the moisture from my eyes and read that passage again. Then again. Then again.
Damaged... condoms? Shuffling through her drawers, I look for another journal. I need to find what happened before Talia. My head spins. I’m dizzy. Then I hear the front door open. My cousin walks in with Talia and Francis, calling out into the apartment. Gulping as I scrub my face, I shove the journal back into the desk and exit the library. I’ll find the other journals later. I’ll face those demons once I’ve kissed my children and told them I love them. Talia runs into my arms, laughing, her backpack almost as big as she is. “I made a new friend!” she announces, beaming. “Her name is Beatrice, but I call her Bea. Can she come over to play?” “As long as her parents are happy to let her, sure.” I force a smile, kissing my daughter’s cheek as I ruffle Francis’s hair. Danica glances at me from the door. “Need anything else?” “No thanks, Danica.” I nod at my cousin, the sound of her name reminding me of another woman. “When are you hiring a new nanny? I won’t be available next week.” My heart constricts. I don’t want a new nanny. I want my old nanny. I want Dani. With the kids in bed and the house silent, I stare down the hallway toward the library. My feet are silent on the carpet as I walk toward the door, pausing with my hand on the knob. I need to find out what happened with Callie. What really happened. In the few hours I’ve spent with my kids, my wife’s words have swirled around my head. And the guilt I feel has nearly brought me to my knees. I let her drift away from me. I blamed her for the demise of our marriage. I thought she was flighty, irresponsible, vindictive. By her own words she calls herself that, but I realize I’d checked out of the relationship long before it really fell apart. I have to shoulder that responsibility. I have to come to terms with the fact that I’m to blame, too. And what Callie wrote about why we got pregnant—the condoms—I need to get to the bottom of that as well. If that’s true... Squeezing my eyes shut, I st ep into the library and close the door behind me. When I open my eyes again, the desk in the corner is illuminated by a shaft of moonlight, as if there’s nowhere else in the room I need to be but sitting at that desk, getting to know my wife from beyond the grave. I read until the early hours of the morning. Until the sky turns from black to grey to pink and blue. Until I hear shuffling beyond the library door as Francis and Talia wake up. And I realize I was a terrible husband. Callie was sick. She knew she was sick. She knew she had d epression and anxiety and her mind was fraying at the edges. I saw it in moments of clarity, pieces of her journal where her handwriting was neater, tighter. Then she’d fall into almost manic periods, her writing jagged and rushed, thoughts fragmented, paranoid.
I thought she was flighty, selfish, manipulative. I didn’t see what was right in front of me—that she needed help. Then she died. Our marriage probably never would have worked, but she didn’t have to die. I know I wasn’t the right man for her. We both knew it—hell, she even wrote that. But she loved those kids and she felt herself slipping away. She needed help, and I wasn’t there for her. I was so focused on my own bitterness, my own anger, my own righteous rage... I didn’t see what she needed. As I stand on stiff legs and stretch out my aching back, I look at the city sprawled out beyond the windows, and I know she never meant to die that morning. She never meant to steal the kids from me. She never meant for them to get hurt. Not in her right mind. Not in the true parts of her that weren’t fraught with untreated illness. Forgiveness comes as the sun rises above the horizon, as I hear Talia chattering to Kathryn in the kitchen, as Francis giggles from his seat on the table. I forgive Callie for all the hurt she caused me. For the bitterness of our marriage, for trying to take my children and my company. And, as my lips touch Francis’s hair, my son swinging his legs in his chair as he holds a sippy cup of juice, I acc ept responsibility for my part in the breakdown of my marriage. I forgive myself too. Kathryn’s all-seeing eyes study me from across the kitchen. She pours me a cup of coffee and slides it across the counter, no doubt taking in my rumpled clothes, my sle
Ep d eprived face. “Late night?” she asks quietly. “I was an asshole to Callie.” Kathryn glances at the kids and, seeing them occupied with their food, turns back to me. She closes the distance between us and slides her hands over my cheeks. A tender, intimate, motherly touch. “She was damaged, Emil. You couldn’t fix her. The kids couldn’t fix her. It was always going to end badly.” “I need to find Dani. I can’t lose someone else because I’m too stubborn to change.” Her eyes soften, the sun gleaming off her silver hair. “Let me know if I need to arrange for your mother or your cousin to watch the kids.” Kathryn’s arms move from my face to my waist, and she gives me a tight squeeze. I hug her back as my resolve strengthens. I may have been blind with Callie, but I won’t let it happen again.