My car waited at the curb.
I looked at the man I had loved for six years.
Part of me wanted to collapse into him.
Another part remembered every empty night.
Love did not erase memory.
Pregnancy did not magically repair a marriage.
And one dramatic moment on Christmas Eve could not repay years of neglect.
I picked up my handbag.
“I’m still going to San Diego.”
Pain crossed his face, but he nodded.
“I know.”
“I need space.”
“You’ll have it.”
“No surprise visits.”
“All right.”
“No men following me.”
He hesitated.
I raised an eyebrow.
A faint, miserable breath escaped him.
“No men following you.”
“And you will not call Simone to convince me to come back.”
“I value my life too much to call Simone tonight.”
Despite everything, a tiny laugh escaped me.
Marcus heard it.
His whole face changed for half a second.
Not triumph.
Hope.
That frightened me more than his anger had.
I stepped through the doorway.
“Elena.”
I turned.
He was standing beneath the Christmas lights, holding the divorce papers at his side.
“I am happy about the baby,” he said.
My throat tightened.
“I know this is the worst possible moment to say that.
But I need you to know.
I am terrified, and ashamed, and I have probably destroyed the best thing that ever happened to me.”
His eyes dropped toward my stomach, then returned to my face.
“But underneath all of that, I’m happy.”
For the first time that night, I cried.
Only one tear.
I wiped it away before stepping into the snow.
“I wish you had given me a reason to tell you sooner.”
Then I got into the car.
Marcus did not follow.
As we pulled away from Lake Shore Drive, I looked back once.
He was still standing in the doorway.
Alone.
For once, the emptiness belonged to him.
I spent Christmas with Simone in San Diego.
She opened the door, saw my face, saw my suitcases, and wrapped both arms around me without asking a single question.
Later, after tea and tears and a long night of telling her everything, she asked what Marcus had done when he found the test.
“He let me leave,” I said.
Simone stared at me.
“That man?”
“That man.”
