Richard asked to speak to me in the dining room.
I nearly suggested the conservatory out of habit. Instead I said six o’clock and arrived at six, with the day’s work finished and my coat still on.
He had poured two glasses of wine.
“I don’t want one,” I said.
“You always liked this.”
“I still do. I don’t want one now.”
He looked at the second glass, then moved it aside. The gesture was so ordinary that it hurt. There had been years in which he would have known without asking whether I wanted wine, tea, silence. Or perhaps I had simply accepted whatever he put in front of me and called that being known.
I sat at the end of the table. He remained standing for a moment before taking the chair beside me.
“The solicitor sent the revised letter.”
“I saw.”
The agreement about the conservatory parts was now clear. The business equipment was mine. The broader financial arrangements were still being negotiated, but neither of us could pretend the temporary separation was a misunderstanding waiting to be corrected.
Richard ran his thumb along the stem of his glass.
“You’re really taking it.”
“Part of it.”
“The place will look strange.”
“You wanted it gone.”
“I wanted the house to work.”
I waited. He looked toward the window, where the conservatory lights were reflected in the dark.
“I didn’t think you’d actually move the business.”
“What did you think I would do?”
“Take a break. Find something less demanding. You were always tired.”
The old anger rose, but more slowly now. I could see the shape of his explanation: a life he had described to himself until it sounded like care.
“You never asked whether I wanted less of the business.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I did. Not in a way that made you uncomfortable enough to listen.”
He looked at me sharply. I heard how prepared the sentence sounded and disliked that. I had thought about this conversation in the shower, in the car, while cutting stems. Now that I was in it, I wanted less eloquence and more truth.
“I liked my work,” I said. “I still like it. I was tired because I was doing too much. Some of that was my fault. Some of it wasn’t.”
Richard took a sip of wine.
“I know I haven’t handled this well.”
“No.”
“You don’t have to agree so quickly.”
I almost smiled. For a second I could see the man who had once made me laugh by pretending to be offended. Then the moment passed.
“What did you want to talk about?”
He set the glass down.
“If Iris weren’t pregnant.”
I waited, though I knew the rest.
“Would you still leave?”
The room became very quiet. I could hear the refrigerator in the next room and a car passing on the road beyond the wall.
“Yes,” I said.
He looked away.
I had imagined feeling victorious when I said it. Instead I felt tired and sad, as though I had finally reached the end of a long journey and found nobody waiting to celebrate.
“Because of him?”
“No.”
“You’re seeing him.”
“Yes.”
It was the first time I had said it to Richard. He pressed his lips together.
“That was quick.”
I looked at him until he looked down.
“I know,” he said. “I know how that sounds.”
“Then don’t say it.”
He nodded once.
I took off my coat because I had become too warm, then immediately wished I hadn’t. It made the conversation look as if I intended to stay.
“I loved you,” I said.
His face changed. “I know.”
“I don’t think you do. I don’t think you understand how much I arranged around that.”
He began to speak, then stopped.
“It wasn’t all bad,” he said.
“No. It wasn’t.”
That was the hardest part to give him. There had been a cottage in Wales where the roof leaked and he put saucepans beneath the drips, moving them around like instruments. There had been the night my mother became ill, when he drove without complaint and waited in a plastic chair until morning. There had been the ordinary habit of his hand finding mine while we slept.
I could remember those things without offering him another chance to turn them into reasons I should accept the rest.
“Do you remember the cottage?” I asked.
He looked surprised, then smiled faintly.
“The one with the terrible bed?”
“And the rain.”
“You said we’d never go anywhere with character again.”
“You booked it.”
“I did.”
We sat with the memory. It belonged to both of us. I had been afraid that leaving meant he would take even that, that the whole marriage would become a mistake I had to explain away.
“I wanted it to be you,” I said.
Richard’s eyes were wet. I had not expected that either.
“I’m sorry.”
For once, he did not add what he had intended, or what I had failed to understand, or how difficult everything had become for him.
“I believe you,” I said. “I’m still leaving.”
He nodded, looking at the table.
We talked afterward about practical things. Not for long. The photographs I wanted, the old chest of drawers, the cot I had decided to donate through an organization that could use it appropriately. I would not leave it for Iris’s baby, and I would not carry it into the new workshop as if storing it would make a different future more likely.
Richard agreed. He offered to help move the chest.
“The movers can do it.”
“All right.”
He asked whether I needed more time. I said no. For the first time, the answer was not bravado. The new workshop was almost ready. Adam’s team had a plan for the salvaged sections. Ruth had been buying labels in increasingly bright colors. Leaving was becoming a set of actions other people could help with.
At the door, Richard said my name.
I turned.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel replaceable.”
I thought of the first sentence, the trousers in his hand, Iris’s suitcase on the tiles.
“You asked me to teach someone else my duties.”
He flinched.
“I know.”
I picked up my coat. There was nothing left I needed him to agree with.
Outside, the air smelled of rain. I walked past the conservatory and into the flat, where the small lamp I had bought stood on the windowsill. I had chosen it because I liked its red shade. No one else had expressed an opinion.
I put the ring in a little envelope and wrote my name on it. I did not know what I would do with it eventually. For now, it did not belong beside the bed.
Then I called Adam.
“Are you busy?”
“Not too busy for you.”
“That sounds rehearsed.”
“It wasn’t. I’m annoyed you made it sound rehearsed.”
I smiled, and the smile became tears before I could stop it.
He heard. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing new. I talked to Richard.”
“Do you want me to come?”
I looked at the envelope on the table.
“No. Not because I don’t want you. I think I need to finish being here tonight.”
“All right.”
“Could you tell me something ordinary?”
He considered. “Daniel says the benches are too high.”
I laughed through the tears. “Are they?”
“For some people. Apparently people come in different heights.”
“Extraordinary.”
“We’re investigating.”
He talked for a while about the workshop, the students, a delivery that had arrived at the wrong gate. I listened from the bed, looking at the cardigan box beneath the window.
When we ended the call, I was still sad. I left the envelope where it was.
I turned off the lamp and slept.