The Wife He Never Knew

Chapter 6: A Table for Two

I played Adrian's voicemail with the old report open beneath my hand.

“Clara. Please. I know you're angry, but we need to talk before people who don't understand the situation get involved. I'm at home. I've made something to eat.”

A pause. The faint sound of a plate being moved.

“You haven't eaten properly. Call me.”

I had eaten a roll over a sink. He would have counted that as proof he knew me best.

I saved the message and called him.

He answered before the first ring finished.

“Where are you?”

“I'll meet you at the café inside the Beaumont. Six thirty.”

“Come home. We don't need an audience.”

“Then we can talk quietly.”

“Clara—”

“Six thirty. I have half an hour.”

I ended the call before I could offer him more.

Mara replied to my message with a request to text when I was finished. Then she added: Eat something you can't describe as bread.

I stood at the studio mirror and wiped a smudge of pencil from my cheek. My hair had escaped its clip. I put it back without trying to make myself look like someone he might regret losing.

The Beaumont was a hotel we used to walk past when we couldn't afford a coffee there.

Adrian had brought me to its restaurant after his first profitable year. I remembered sitting beneath the chandelier, frightened of ordering the most expensive thing even after he told me to choose anything.

Tonight, I chose a table near the café counter.

He was already there.

He stood when he saw me, relief moving across his face so quickly that my body answered it before I could stop myself.

There you are, I almost said.

Instead, I sat down.

“You look exhausted.”

“I am.”

He reached for the teapot.

“I ordered yours.”

My cup waited beside a slice of lemon. He knew how I took my tea. Nina's existence hadn't erased that knowledge, which seemed like something the world should have arranged.

“Did you tell her we were divorced?”

He set the pot down.

“I should never have let things get that far.”

“Did you?”

He glanced toward the counter.

“Yes.”

I kept my hands in my lap.

“When were you planning to tell me?”

“I didn't know how.”

“Before or after June fourteenth?”

He shut his eyes.

I hadn't planned to say the date. Hearing it aloud hurt more than reading it in my appointment book.

“It wasn't supposed to happen like this.”

I waited for him to explain how it had been supposed to happen.

He didn't.

A server came to ask whether we wanted food. Adrian began ordering soup for me.

“A sandwich,” I said. “Chicken, please.”

The server looked at me, wrote it down, and left.

Adrian folded the menu.

“You could have told me you didn't want soup.”

I stared at him.

He looked away first.

“I'm sorry. That sounded ridiculous.”

“Yes.”

For a moment, I recognized the man who used to apologize when he interrupted me. I wanted that recognition to mean something larger than it did.

“Do you love her?” I asked.

He rubbed the side of his thumb, just below the scar.

“I don't know what I feel.”

“You asked her to marry you.”

“Things between us haven't been right for a long time.”

“Between you and me?”

“You know they haven't.”

His voice softened into the tone we used when agreeing about something unpleasant. It had always made disagreement feel unkind.

“I knew we were tired,” I said. “I knew you stopped asking about my work. I didn't know you considered yourself divorced.”

“After your mother died, you shut me out.”

I looked at the cup he had ordered.

There had been months when getting dressed took effort. Evenings when he asked what was wrong and I said nothing because explaining grief seemed like making a guest stay after dinner.

“I was difficult to live with sometimes,” I said.

He leaned forward.

“That's what I'm trying to—”

“You still had choices.”

His mouth closed.

My sandwich arrived. The bread had been cut into three precise pieces, with a little dish of pickles beside it.

I picked up one piece because Mara would ask.

Adrian watched me take a bite.

“What happens now?” he asked.

“First, you answer the questions about the company.”

I brought out a copy of the old summary and turned it toward him.

“Why were you receiving information about Mum's finances?”

He looked at the page for longer than I expected.

“She asked me to help.”

“What information did they send?”

“I'd have to look. That was years ago.”

“Then look.”

“You make it sound as though I kept a secret file on her.”

“I found your name today. I asked a question.”

He pushed the paper back, carefully avoiding the tea.

“Your mother didn't like talking about money. You know that.”

“Did you talk about it with her?”

“Sometimes.”

“And with me?”

“I told you the business needed managing.”

He had. In the hospital corridor, beside the machine that sold terrible coffee, he had told me to let him handle the practical things.

I had been so relieved I leaned against him.

I could still remember the wool of his coat against my face.

“Send what you have to Leila,” I said.

“We could do this without paying someone every time we speak.”

“You don't charge me for speaking. That hasn't made it free.”

The words came out sharper than I intended. I took a drink and gave myself time to stop shaking.

“And the signature?” I asked.

He looked toward the window.

“That was an approval to move things forward. Not a final sale.”

“It wasn't mine.”

“You told me to explore options.”

“That isn't the same thing.”

“Clara, you said you couldn't keep worrying about the mill.”

“I say I can't keep worrying about the roof. It doesn't mean you can sell the studio.”

His jaw tightened.

“I was trying to get us out of a difficult position.”

“By putting my signature on something?”

He didn't answer.

I wrote his exact explanation beneath the date in my notebook. My handwriting was ugly. I didn't try to improve it.

“Have you been recording this?” he asked.

“I'm taking notes. You can see me.”

He lowered his voice.

“What has Vale promised you?”

“Copies of records.”

“He doesn't do favors.”

“Neither did you, apparently.”

I wished I hadn't said that. It felt too easy, and nothing about sitting there was easy.

“Did you receive money for arranging the sale?” I asked.

“It hasn't happened.”

“Were you going to?”

He pulled at his cuff.

“There are commercial arrangements. Your lawyer can ask for them.”

“She has.”

That stopped him.

The café door opened behind me. Cold air crossed my ankles. Adrian reached automatically for the coat hanging over his chair, then seemed to reconsider.

I had loved being the person he noticed was cold.

I finished another piece of sandwich.

“Did you take her to the lemon courtyard?” I asked.

He looked at me.

“She showed me a photograph.”

“Clara, please don't do this to yourself.”

I put the sandwich down.

“You took her there.”

“She booked the hotel. I didn't know until—”

“You could have said you'd been before.”

He pressed his lips together.

On our honeymoon, I had dropped a borrowed earring between the paving stones. Adrian had spent twenty minutes on his knees with the light from his phone, refusing to leave it behind. We had laughed about it every time I wore those earrings afterward.

I wondered whether he had remembered that while standing beside Nina.

“There are places you could have left for me,” I said.

His eyes filled. I hadn't expected that, and I hated the impulse to comfort him.

“I know.”

“You don't. You still get to remember taking care of me there. I have to wonder what else I misunderstood.”

He reached across the table but stopped short of my wrist.

“That was real,” he said.

I believed him. That was what made the photograph so difficult to bear.

I moved the empty plate aside. My mouth tasted of mustard, and there was a crumb on my sleeve. I brushed it off slowly while he waited for an answer I didn't have.

“I'm not coming home tonight,” I said.

He looked at my hand.

“You're still wearing your ring.”

I hadn't decided what to do with it. It was part of my hand when I washed, sewed, reached for a cup.

“I haven't had time to make every decision.”

He nodded slowly, as though I had offered