All Chapters of The Wife he Never loved : Chapter 21 - Chapter 25

MICHAEL He sat with the phone in his hand for a long time after the call ended.The study was dark except for the desk lamp. Outside the window the city did what cities did at ten o'clock carrying on, indifferent, unbothered by the things that happened inside houses.He set the phone down.Leaned back in his chair.He thought about the words. The order of them. The particular way Sarah's voice had changed at the end not emotional. Decided. That was what it was. A voice that had made up its mind.He rubbed one hand across his jaw.Give me time.He had said it again. The same thing he always said. And even as he had said it he had heard how it sounded not like a promise. Like a postponement.He sat in that thought for a while. Then stood.Turned off the desk lamp. Walked upstairs. He stopped outside Jessica's door.Light from beneath it. Thin yellow line across the floor.She was still awake.He stood there in the hallway for a moment.He didn't know what he would have said if he had kn

The house was quiet when Jessica unlocked the front door.She stepped inside and closed it softly behind her.For a moment, she thought she was alone."You're late."Michael's voice came from the hallway.She looked up and found him standing near the staircase, his jacket already off, sleeves rolled to his forearms.He looked as though he'd been waiting."I had dinner with Maya," Jessica said.He nodded once. Neither of them moved.The silence stretched."Who brought you home?"The question caught her off guard.She frowned."Maya."His eyes stayed on her."And after dinner?"She blinked."What?""How did you get here?"She studied him.Something about the question didn't feel casual."Maya drove me."So small most people would have missed it. But she saw it.His shoulders relaxed. Barely."Why does it matter?" she asked quietly.His jaw tightened.For one impossible second she thought he was finally going to tell her the truth.Instead he said,"If you're staying out late..." He stopp

She looked at him."What would your life look like," he said, "if nothing was waiting to be resolved?"She frowned slightly. "What do you mean?""I mean " He tilted his head slightly. Thinking about how to say it. "Right now everything in your life is on hold. Waiting for Michael to decide. Waiting for the situation to resolve itself. Waiting to find out what shape things are going to take." A pause. "But what if you stopped waiting? What would your life actually look like?"She opened her mouth, Closed it.The question sat between them. She had not been asked that before. She had been asked what she wanted Michael to do. What she expected. What she was going to do if he didn't follow through. Every question people had asked before somehow led back to Michael.She sat with it.The child beside them finally surrendered the crayon. Her mother tucked it into her bag. The child looked at the blank napkin for a moment and then seemed to forget she had ever wanted it."I don't know," Sarah