The Broken Vow

Rekindling

It was 10 p.m. Rosalie had just returned from work. When she opened the front door, she took a deep breath as always, but this time… the house smelled of nothing.

Rosalie stood in the doorway with her black heels dangling from two fingers. Tonight the air was cold, and her feet were colder against the marble.

Her stomach clenched. She pressed her palm flat against her stomach and breathed through the pain.

She walked into the living room and turned on the lights. She looked round the room, biting her lower lip. The leather sofa. The staircase. The shelves she had never dusted. They all rang a bell. She wouldn't have had the house if it weren't for Alexander. The money he had put into the company had changed her life. That money had grown into the company, and the company had bought this house.

He had never mentioned it. She had never asked where it came from.

‘I made the right choice,’ she told herself. ‘He signed it. He didn't even fight.’

Her stomach twisted again; she increased the pressure of her hands on the stomach in pain.

"Stop thinking loudly, Rose."

She jumped. Christopher stood at the foot of the stairs watching in his shirtsleeves shirt, which showed his muscles.

"What do you mean?"

"I can hear your thoughts. Your face tells it all. I stayed four years with you in university, so probably I haven't forgotten all of you." He crossed the room, unhurried, and stopped behind her. His arms slid around her waist, and his chin came to rest near her shoulder. He smelled of cedar. "I waited up."

She should have said something light. She stood still instead, and let the warmth settle against her back.

"So," he said quietly. "Now that it's done. What's your next move?"

"I don't know. I really don't, Chris. I thought I would." She stared at the floor. "I thought I'd feel lighter."

His arms tightened a little, as though to hold the heaviness for her. "Then don't think about him tonight. Whatever he was, he's finished."

Something snagged on the word ,him,. She turned it over, and the question came out before she'd decided to ask it. "Did you know Alex before I introduced you?"

His arms did not move. "Why would you ask that?"

"This morning. When you walked into the living room and he looked at you." She tried to find the shape of it. "The way you two looked at each other. Like you two had seen each other before."

"Well…" Christopher said.

She felt his breath leave him slowly.

"No," he said. "We hadn't. I've never met the man before today."

"But—"

"Rose." He turned her around by the shoulders, gently, as if she might spill. He placed his hand on her left cheek. "I flew eleven hours. I've thought about this moment for three years. I'm not going to spend tonight talking about your husband."

"Ex-husband." She snapped it immediately.

"Ex-husband." A small smile crossed his face. "I've missed you."

It landed somewhere beneath her ribs. All the sharp, practical words she'd been holding for the evening went quiet.

"I've missed you too," she said.

He pulled her in against his chest and held her, one hand moving slowly between her shoulder blades. She felt his heartbeat through the shirt. Neither of them spoke. When she finally let her forehead drop against him, he did not try for more. He simply rocked her, an inch to the left, an inch back, the way you quiet a child.

Rosalie felt different. She held her breath. It was the first time in three years that another man had touched her.

"Don't panic," he murmured. "I won't do anything to you… for now."

She smiled. He had always known how to understand her even without her saying anything.

"Come on," he said.

He took the heels from her fingers, which she had forgotten she was holding. Then he took her hand, and she let him lead her up the stairs. His shoes were soft on the carpet. Hers were bare.

At her bedroom door, he lifted a strand of hair that had stuck to her cheek and tucked it behind her ear with one knuckle. "Do you have medicine?"

"In the cabinet by the kitchen. The one with the blue—" She stopped.

‘Alex knows where everything is.’ She thought,

"I'll find it," Christopher said. He studied her for a moment. "Rose, I'll find somewhere to lodge in the morning. A hotel or a short let, just until I find a house of my own. I don't want to impose."

"No," she said before she could stop herself. "Don't go… please." He almost couldn't hear her.

The house would be enormous without him in it. Her mother was in a hospital bed. Alex's wardrobe was emptied. No one hunting for the thermometer, no one bringing her something warm without being asked. She imagined the long silence of the hallway at three in the morning, and her chest closed around the thought.

She said none of it.

"Alright then," he said, as if he'd heard every word. "I'll stay. I'll go get your medicine." He headed towards the door. Rosalie watched him leave.

She heard his footsteps go down the stairs, slowly, and then the sound of cabinets opening and closing in the kitchen, one wrong door after another.

Rosalie sat on her bed.