Chapter 4 - The Woman Across the Table
Four months passed before Isabelle agreed to see me.
I did not locate her through private investigators.
I considered it.
That distinction mattered less than I wanted it to.
For two days, I had the number of a discreet firm sitting on my desk. I told myself I needed to know she was safe.
Then I remembered Mae had already told me.
What I wanted was access.
I threw away the number.
Eventually, through our attorneys, I asked whether Isabelle would consider one conversation in a public place.
The answer came three weeks later.
Forty-five minutes.
A café in New York.
No gifts.
No surprise guests.
I arrived thirty minutes early.
When she entered, I stood so quickly my chair scraped the floor.
Her hair was shorter.
She wore a dark green coat I had never seen.
There was no wedding ring on her hand.
For a moment, I forgot every sentence I had prepared.
“Hello, Gabriel.”
“Hello.”
She sat across from me.
I had imagined this meeting so often that the ordinary details felt almost offensive.
A spoon striking a cup.
The hiss of the espresso machine.
Someone at the next table complaining about parking.
My marriage was ending while the world continued to order breakfast.
“How are you feeling?”
“Much better.”
“The follow-up appointments?”
“Good.”
“I’m glad.”
She nodded.
A waiter approached.
Isabelle ordered tea.
I almost corrected him when he offered milk.
She used to drink it with lemon.
Then she said, “Milk is fine.”
Four months.
People could become unfamiliar in four months.
I wrapped my hand around my coffee cup.
“I’ve been in therapy.”
“I hope that’s helping.”
“It is. It’s difficult.”
“I imagine.”
I heard the distance in her kindness.
I had once believed kindness meant a door remained open.
Now I understood it could simply mean she did not want to hurt me.
“I ended things with Camille.”
Isabelle looked toward the window.
“Okay.”
The word frightened me.
It contained no victory.
No relief.
Her life had continued beyond the question of whom I slept beside.
“I never loved her the way I love you,” I whispered.
Isabelle turned back.
“Maybe.”
“I know that sounds inadequate.”
“It sounds like a comparison I never wanted to enter.”
I lowered my eyes.
“I didn’t know about the surgery.”
“I know.”
“If you had told me—”
She stopped me with a slight movement of her hand.
“Gabriel. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life debating the version of that week where I gave you a sufficiently compelling reason.”
I felt myself shrink.
“I wanted you to choose me on ordinary days,” she said. “When nobody was frightened. When staying home wouldn’t make you a hero.”
I looked at my wedding ring.
I had worn it through Rome.
Through hotel dinners.
Through every betrayal.
Now I lifted my hand as though the ring could testify for me.
“I still wear it.”
Her eyes filled.
Not with hope.
With sadness.
“Then I hope it reminds you of something useful.”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
For the first time in our marriage, I allowed her to finish speaking without preparing my defense.
“I loved you,” she said. “I need you to understand that I wasn’t pretending. I wasn’t waiting for a better life. I wanted the life we promised each other.”
“I did too.”
“Once.”
The café seemed to grow quieter.
Then she reached into her purse.
“There’s one last thing you need to know about those seven days.”
She placed a small envelope between us.
The paper was old.
Soft at the corners.
Across the front, in handwriting I recognized immediately, were five words.
For Isabelle, when we forget.
My handwriting.
I stared.
“Where did you find this?”
“In the lining of my wedding dress. I’d tucked it there after our first anniversary.”
I remembered the dress.
I did not remember the envelope.
“You wrote it after our first real fight,” she said.
I slid one finger beneath the flap.
Inside was a page torn from a cheap notebook.
At the top, I had written a date from fourteen years earlier.
And beneath it:
If I ever become the kind of man who makes loving him feel lonely, I want you to believe your loneliness before you believe my excuses.
My chest tightened.
I looked up.
Isabelle’s eyes shone.
“I found it on day six,” she said.
Then she pointed to the next paragraph.
“Keep reading.”
May you like
I did.
And something inside me finally stopped searching for a way around the truth.
