The wife I forgot to love novel Chapter 2

Helena could not stop looking at the photo.

She knew she should put the phone down. She knew standing in her own kitchen at eight in the evening staring at a stranger's face on a screen was not going to change anything or explain anything or make the tightness in her chest go anywhere useful.

She looked anyway.

Camila Calloway was the kind of beautiful that didn't need to try. Not the kind that came from effort and early mornings and the right lighting. The kind that just existed, easy and uncomplicated, like it had never once been a question. Dark hair. Strong face. The relaxed posture of a woman completely comfortable in whatever room she walked into.

And Damian...

Helena zoomed in slowly on his face.

She had been looking at that face across a dinner table for two years. She knew every version of it. The distracted one he wore when work was loud in his head. The tired one that settled in around the eyes on Thursday nights. The almost-smile he gave her when she said something that caught him off guard.

The face in this photo was none of those.

It was open. Just open. The way a person looks when they have stopped managing themselves, stopped holding anything back, stopped being somewhere else in their own head. He was looking at Camila Calloway and every single part of him was present for it.

Helena couldn't remember the last time he had looked at her that way.She turned the screen off.

She stood in the quiet of her kitchen with the dish towel folded the way she always folded it and the leftover chicken wrapped in the fridge and the sound of Damian upstairs moving around their bedroom like it was just another evening.

Her hands were steady.

She noticed that. Her hands were completely steady.

She put the phone in her pocket and climbed the stairs.

Damian was in bed already, sitting up against the headboard with his tablet, reading something. He glanced over when she came in. "Thought you were right behind me."

"I was cleaning up." She went to her side of the bed. Started taking off her earrings. Set them on the nightstand one at a time.

"You don't have to do that tonight. I would have helped."

"It's done now."

She sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him and took a slow breath that she made sure didn't sound like anything.

"There's that thing at Harmon's firm on Friday," Damian said behind her. "Dinner. You don't have to come if you don't want to."

"Do you want me there?"

A pause. Not long. Just enough.

"Of course," he said.

She turned around and looked at him. Her husband with his tablet and his tired eyes and his face that had been open and fully present for someone else tonight while she had been downstairs making chicken and folding dish towels.

"I'll come," she said.He nodded. Looked back at the tablet. "How's your sister?"

"Fine."

"She still giving you grief about Sunday dinner?"

"Always."

He made a sound that might have been a laugh. Turned a page. Settled deeper into the pillow.

Helena got into bed. Pulled the covers up. Lay on her back looking at the ceiling.

"Damian."

"Mm?"

"Are you happy?"

The tablet stopped moving.

He turned and looked at her. Really looked at her, the way he hadn't all evening, with both eyes and his full attention and no phone in his hand. The question was sitting between them and she watched him decide what to do with it.

"What kind of question is that?" he said.

"A simple one."

He put the tablet down. "I'm fine, Helena. Work is a lot right now. I'm tired." A beat. "Why are you asking me this?"

"Because I don't ask enough." She kept her eyes on the ceiling. "I ask about your day and I tell you about Cassidy and I pass messages along and I never actually ask if you're happy."

The room was quiet.

"I'm happy," he said.

She nodded once. Slowly." Are you?" he asked.

She turned her head and looked at him. At the jaw she knew and the eyes watching her carefully and the hand resting on the duvet between them, still and quiet and giving nothing away.

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