The wife I forgot to love novel Chapter 7

He came back on Thursday with his answer.

Helena was in the kitchen making tea, not dinner. She had stopped making dinner three days ago. She had not announced this. She had just stopped.

He stood in the doorway and looked at her and she looked back and neither of them said anything for a moment because they both already knew.

I think we should end the marriage. He said.

Okay. She said.

That was all. She did not ask him to explain. She did not cry. She picked up her tea and told him she would be out by Sunday and went upstairs and sat on the edge of their bed and listened to his footsteps going to the guest room and then she let herself cry. Quietly. Quickly. Just enough to get it out.

Then she called Cassidy.

He said it. Helena said when Cassidy picked up.

One second of silence. Then. I am already in the car.

Cassidy arrived in fourteen minutes with nothing. No food. No wine. She just sat on the bed next to Helena and held her hand and said nothing for a long time. Which was exactly right.

I am out by Sunday. Helena said eventually.

You can stay with me. Cassidy said.

I found a place. I have had it on hold for four days. She looked at her hands. I knew Cass. I knew when I walked back up those stairs after the confrontation that this was where it was going. I just needed him to say it.

Are you okay. Cassidy said.

No. Helena said. But I am going to be.

Cassidy squeezed her hand and said nothing else. Which was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for her.

Sunday came.

Helena started packing at six in the morning before her brain could fully wake up and make it harder. Clothes first. The ones she had bought herself. Not the blue dress he had said he liked, not the cream blouse she had chosen because it seemed like something a wife wore. Her things. The ones that existed before him.

She was zipping the second bag when the guest room door opened.

Footsteps in the hall. A pause outside the bedroom door.

Helena.

Almost done. She said. Give me ten minutes.

I am not rushing you.

She turned around.

Damian was standing in the doorway in yesterday's clothes. He had not slept. She could see it in his face and she did not let herself feel anything about that. He looked at her two bags and her one box and the stripped side of the wardrobe that used to be hers and something crossed his face that was close enough to guilt that she had to look away.

I can carry those down. He said.

I am okay.

Helena. Let me do something.

She looked at him. At the man who had built two years of a life with her and somewhere in the middle of it stopped seeing what that life actually was. You can carry the box. She said. That is all.

He picked it up without a word.

She followed him downstairs with her bags and set them by the front door. Then she went back to the kitchen. She had left one thing on purpose and now she had to go in and get it.

She stood in the kitchen doorway.

The stove where she had made two years of dinners. The counter where she had left his coffee every morning before he was even awake. The chair by the door where he always put his jacket. All of it exactly as she had kept it.

She opened the spice rack.

The rosemary was on the second shelf. She had bought three jars because she used it so often. She took one and left two. She stood there for a moment looking at the two she was leaving. He would not use them. He would not notice them until they expired and then he would throw them away without once thinking about the woman who had put them there.

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