Chapter 22 - Eighteen Months
For a week, Daniel and I discussed Seattle like professionals.
Flights.
Temporary housing.
Remote work.
My project schedule.
His project phases.
Then, on Friday night, we finally discussed it like married people.
“I don’t want you to go,” I said.
Daniel sat across from me at our kitchen table.
“I know.”
“I also don’t want you to turn it down because I don’t want you to go.”
“I know that too.”
“This is infuriating.”
“Yes.”
The kitchen was quiet.
It was the same room where we had hosted friends, burned sauces, argued over cabinet paint, and once spent forty minutes trying to rescue a bird that had flown in through the back door.
Now the room felt divided by three thousand miles.
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“There’s another option.”
“What?”
“They would accept twelve months on-site if I travel back regularly afterward.”
“That’s still twelve months.”
“Yes.”
“How regularly?”
“Three weeks there. One week here, approximately.”
I tried to imagine it.
Airport pickups.
Late calls.
Separate daily routines.
Our house becoming mostly mine.
“I hate it.”
“So do I.”
“Do you still want the project?”
“Yes.”
I appreciated him enough to resent that answer less than a lie.
The next morning, I drove to see Hugh alone.
He had progressed to walking short distances without assistance inside the house.
His speech remained slower than before, which meant he had finally been forced into pauses other people could use.
I explained Seattle.
He listened.
“What should I do?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“You never ask advice.”
“I’m expanding.”
He considered the question.
Then said, “Why married Daniel?”
“Because I love him.”
“Bad answer.”
“Hugh.”
“Love common.”
I waited.
He worked through the words carefully.
“Why him?”
I thought.
“Because he tells the truth even when it makes things harder.”
“Good.”
“And he makes room for my work.”
“Good.”
“He doesn’t need me to become smaller.”
Hugh nodded.
“Then don’t make him smaller.”
That annoyed me immediately.
“I’m not.”
His expression said otherwise.
“I don’t have to prove I’m supportive by accepting everything.”
“Correct.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Hugh struggled for a longer sentence.
Catherine, passing through the room, almost helped.
He waved her away.
Finally, he said, “Marriage… not table where one person always moves plate.”
I stared at him.
The metaphor was imperfect.
The point was not.
Daniel and I had built a marriage where neither person’s life was automatically secondary.
Now that principle was expensive.
Back home, I found Daniel repairing the loose hinge on the back door.
“I have conditions,” I said.
He looked up.
“For Seattle?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“We don’t pretend three weeks apart every month is easy.”
“Agreed.”
“We budget for flights before everything optional.”
“Agreed.”
“If one of us starts resenting the arrangement, we say it before resentment becomes a personality.”
He smiled.
“Very specific.”
“I have experience.”
“What else?”
“I come to Seattle sometimes. Not because I’m following you. Because I want to see your work.”
His expression softened.
“Okay.”
“And you come home when you say you will unless something genuinely unavoidable happens.”
“Yes.”
“And we reevaluate after six months.”
“Yes.”
I crossed my arms.
“I still hate it.”
Daniel stood.
“So do I.”
“Are you happy?”
“About the project?”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“Very.”
That helped more than I expected.
I kissed him.
Three months later, I drove him to the airport.
We were both miserable.
At security, Daniel held me longer than necessary.
Then he left.
I returned to the house alone.
For the first time since our wedding, his side of the closet looked temporary.
That night, I ate dinner at the kitchen table.
One plate.
One glass.
No tragedy.
Still, the silence hurt.
At ten, Daniel called from Seattle.
He turned the camera toward a gray waterfront filled with cranes and ferries.
“Want to see something?”
“Yes.”
He showed me the site.
His excitement came through the screen.
I listened while he explained the old seawall, the pedestrian route, and the public overlook.
He looked alive.
Not because he was away from me.
Because he was doing work he loved.
After the call, I stood by the open back door.
The garden moved in the wind.
Missing someone, I realized, was not the same as being abandoned.
That distinction had taken me years to learn.
My phone buzzed.
An email from Naomi Kessler.
Subject: Piermont Construction Discovery.
I opened it.
During demolition of a later addition, workers had uncovered a sealed interior room beneath the old assembly hall.
Inside were boxes.
Hundreds of them.
May you like
And one bore a handwritten name I recognized immediately.
Eleanor Vale.
