When the Maid Rules Rogues

Chapter 5 — Plain Words After a Shock

I came back to myself like a swimmer breaking the surface. The street noise faded. The memory let go. I was not on the curb anymore. I was in my small room with the lamp on and the bandage half-tied around my shin.

I pulled the strip of cloth tight and told my hands to be steady. The cut throbbed. I could manage it. I always could. I reached for the salve.

The latch lifted without a knock. He stepped in as if he had never learned to wait outside anyone's door.

Anderson saw the bandage first. His gaze was quick and cold, like a man checking a map. He did not ask what happened. He already knew enough. He set his cane by the wall and held out his hand.

I placed the jar in his palm. He took the clean gauze too. He moved the stool with his foot, then lifted my leg onto it with care that felt like a habit, not a feeling.

“This will sting," he said.

“I know."

He worked in silence. Cool, then burn, then cool again. His fingers were exact. He wrapped the gauze in neat lines. He pressed the tape down with his thumb. When my breath hitched, he paused and then went on. He did not look at my face.

I watched the edge of his cuff where two threads had come loose. I counted them instead of counting the ways I had tried to be enough. Two threads. That was easy. Love was not.

When he finished, he sat back a little. The space between us held the heat of his hands and the cold of his voice.

“You should ice it every hour," he said. “Keep it up."

“I will."

He turned to rinse the cloth. The muscle in his forearm flexed as he wrung water from it. I looked away before that small, ordinary thing could feel like kindness.

Something in me clicked into place. It was a clean sound, like a latch that finally fits. I had been waiting for it without knowing I was waiting.

“Anderson," I said.

He set the cloth on the chair back and faced me. His eyes were unreadable. He was very good at that.

“I won't keep doing this," I said. I kept my voice plain. “You don't have to worry about me making a scene. You don't have to worry about me asking for what you won't give. I'm asking for one thing only. End it. Let's divorce."

The word hung between us like a cord cut with one stroke.

He did not flinch. His mouth tilted in a shape that was not a smile. “Now?" His voice was cool. “You choose now to talk about this?"

“Yes."

He glanced at the bandage, then at the door, then back at me. The look in his eyes sharpened. “You think this is leverage," he said. “You think you can name a price."

“I'm not naming a price."

“A pity." He let out a short, dry sound. “What do you want, then? Money? A house off the grounds? A title you can wear when you go to the market so people bow correctly?"

I shook my head. “None of that."

“Then what?" His tone went lower. “You walked into this house with nothing. You have eaten at my table. You have slept under my roof. You have worn my name when it suited you."

“It has never suited me," I said. “It has only kept me working."

“Working," he repeated, as if the word itself was an insult to him. “Is this how you ask? After everything I have already given?"

“You never gave me yourself," I said. “You gave me hours. You gave me orders. You gave me a door that is always closed."

His eyes flicked, the smallest move, like a blade catching light. “You knew what this was when you agreed."

“I did," I said. “And I kept my word. I kept the schedule. I kept the house steady. I kept quiet when keeping quiet helped you. But this has never been a marriage. It has been a task list with my name on the top."

His jaw worked once. “You think saying the word 'divorce' will move me," he said. “You think it will make me run to you or run from you. You think it will make me bleed."

“I don't think it will do any of that," I said. “I think it will make things true on paper that were already true in the room."

He stepped closer. The lamp caught the pale line of the scar at his temple. “And if I say no?"

“Then you say no," I said. “You have said it in many other ways already. I am only asking you to put it in writing."

“Why now?" His voice was quiet and sharp. “Because the girl in the yellow dress called me? Because you saw me take a phone call and it hurt your pride?"

“Because I woke up," I said. “Because it is not love to stand in a doorway and wait for a man who never looks back. Because I will not waste my life on a door that stays shut."

He laughed then. It was not a kind sound. “You talk like you are the one who has been wronged beyond repair."

“I have been wronged enough to learn," I said. “That is all."

“You make demands now because you think I need you," he said. “You think I will pay to keep your mouth closed."

“I don't want your money. I want my name back."

“You have my name," he said.

“I never had it in truth," I said. “Only in secret. Only when it protected you."

He picked up the cane and set it down again. He was not used to empty hands. “If I agree," he said slowly, “what do you do next? Where do you go?"

“I go anywhere that is not here," I said. “I go to a room where I am not a shadow. I go to a life that is mine."

He stared at me as if I had spoken a language he did not like to hear. “You are dramatic tonight," he said. “You bleed a little and decide to burn down the house."

“I decide to stop living in the smoke," I said.

He moved closer again, close enough that I could see the tired lines at the corners of his eyes. “You cannot win like this," he said, voice low. “If this is a bargain, it is a poor one. You have nothing I need."

“I never did," I said. “That is why this is simple."

He tilted his head. “Simple." He said the word as if it were a lie trying to pass as the truth. “You think you can throw away the one thing that gives you standing and walk out clean."

“The one thing that gives me standing," I said, “has kept me on my knees."

He took a breath, slow and measured. “You will stay," he said then, almost mild. “You will do the work you do best. You will keep the house in order. You will keep your head down and your mouth shut. And you will stop saying the word 'divorce' like it belongs to you."

“No," I said.

The room went very quiet. The lamp hummed. Somewhere in the hall a board cooled and made a soft, dry pop.

He looked at me as if I had pushed him. “No," he repeated.

“No," I said again. “I am done."

The phone in his jacket vibrated. He did not take his eyes off me. The sound stopped, then started again. He pulled the phone out and glanced at the screen. The set of his mouth changed. The cold left his eyes like a tide going out.

“Serena," he said into the phone. His voice softened at once. “Tell me where you are." He listened, turned toward the door, and reached for the cane without looking. “I'm coming. Don't move. Breathe."

He ended the call. The room remembered me after the call remembered her. He tucked the phone away and straightened.

“Our talk isn't finished," he said.

“It is for me," I said.

He nodded once as if humoring a child. “We will finish it later," he said. “You should rest. Ice the leg."

“I will," I said, because rest and ice were the only things between us that came without a cost.

He reached the door. The distance between his back and my hands felt very large and very small at the same time. He paused with his hand on the latch and half-turned, as if the room itself called him back.

“Laurel," he said.

I waited.

He said nothing else. The name hung in the air like a thread cut too short to tie anything.

He opened the door. He stepped into the hall. His shoulders were straight. His steps were even. He did not look over his shoulder.

The clean sound inside me held for one breath, for two. Then it broke.

I dropped my face into my hands. I did not make a sound. The tears came anyway—hot first, then slow. They slid into the crook of my elbow and stung where the salve cooled my skin. I tried to breathe like the healer taught me: in for three, out for three. It helped and it did not.

I thought about the way he wrapped the gauze. I thought about the way his voice changed for another woman. I thought about the way I had lived in a locked room inside myself and called it patience. I thought about the way a door can be a story you tell yourself for so long that you forget you are allowed to leave by any other door.

I did not hate him. I did not forgive him. I only saw him clearly: a man who could be careful with a wound and careless with a heart. A man who would always answer one call and never hear another.

I wiped my face with my sleeve because the clean cloth on the chair did not deserve this. I laid my leg on the spare pillow. I turned the lamp down to a low circle. The house breathed around me, steady and indifferent. Somewhere outside, a car engine woke and then faded.

I told myself one true thing in plain words I could carry into morning: I will not wait at this door again.

The rest of the night was quiet. My tears were quiet too. They had learned how to be. I watched the line of light at the bottom of the door grow thinner and then go dark. When I closed my eyes, I still saw his back as he walked away. I let the picture stay. It would hurt less each time I looked at it.

I did not speak his name. I did not speak mine. I breathed and let the room hold me. The lamp kept its small watch. When sleep came, it came like a tired friend. I did not fight it.

In the morning I would untie the bandage, change it, and walk straight. I would ask for the paper I needed. I would be done. For now, I cried where no one could see, at the back of the man I had once hoped to reach, and let the last of my hope run clear and honest from my eyes.