He absorbed that without defending himself.
Then he pushed the ring toward me.
“Do you want this?”
I looked at it one last time.
Five years of marriage.
Ten years since the spilled champagne and ruined sketches.
A Connecticut church.
A windy beach in Maine.
A baby we never got to hold.
A cold anniversary dinner.
A marble floor at three in the morning.
I closed the box and slid it back toward him.
“No.”
Grant’s fingers rested on the lid.
“I am sorry, Evelyn.”
I believed him.
That surprised me.
But believing an apology and returning to the person who caused the wound are not the same thing.
“I know,” I said.
Then I stood and put on my old raincoat.
Outside, the city was wet again.
For a second, the rain reminded me of the anniversary night, Manhattan shining beyond our penthouse windows while Grant laughed into his phone.
But I was not looking at the city from behind glass anymore.
I was walking through it.
My left hand was bare.
My mother’s necklace rested against my chest.
In my bag was a sketchbook with my own name written inside.
Evelyn Carter.
Grant had been right in one narrow sense.
He could always marry again.
But I had finally understood the truth he never imagined when he said it.
I did not have to stay married to him.
