That bothered me.
“I told her to go home, Harry.”
“My wife died seven years ago,” he admitted. “Breast cancer. Near the end, she was afraid to let our son visit because she thought he would remember only the hospital bed. I told her she was wrong. I also remember how hard it was to make her believe me.”
Sarah stared at the yellow duck still in the diaper bag.
Marcus followed her gaze.
“When Sarah froze in crowds, the therapist taught me to have her hold something. A table edge. A cup. My hand if nothing else was close.”
“My wife died seven years ago.”
I looked at the café below.
At their hands.
At the image that had burned through me like betrayal.
The exact same gesture.
A different meaning.
That was worse in its own way.
Because I had judged it too easily.
That was worse in its own way.
Sarah reached toward the duck again.
This time I took it out first.
The yarn had faded. One button eye was loose. Lily had chewed the beak during teething and slept with it through two fevers. The left wing was crooked.
Sarah made a sound when she saw it.
Not a sob.
Smaller.
The sound of someone recognizing a room they no longer had keys to.
The yarn had faded.
“I knitted that before she was born,” she said.
“I know.”
“I meant to fix the wing.”
“You didn’t.”
Her fingers hovered over it.
I did not hand it to her.
Not yet.
“I meant to fix the wing.”
“Why didn’t you come home?” I asked.
Sarah looked at the duck instead of me.
“Because every morning I promised myself I would come home tomorrow.” Her finger touched the table near the toy. “Until tomorrow became three years.”
Nobody spoke after that.
Not for a long while.
The truth did not make a clean shape.
“Why didn’t you come home?”
She had not chosen Marcus.
She had not built a new life.
She had also not come home.
All things could be true and still leave no place for my anger to sit comfortably.
Finally I asked, “What did you think would happen if I found you?”
She had not built a new life.
“I didn’t think I would live long enough in the same world as you without coming home.”
“That is not an answer,” I snapped.
“I thought you would hate me, Harry.”
“I do.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“I thought you would hate me, Harry.”
Marcus stepped away from the table.
At the door, he paused.
“I did ruin your company,” he conceded. “I told myself it was business.”
I looked at him. “Was it?”
“No.”
He opened the terrace door.
“I was a smaller man then. Losing my wife did not make me better right away, Harry.”
He left before I could answer.
