Chapter 11: Reading It Out Loud
The lunch crowd had thinned to just the two guys at the far end of the counter, both staring at their phones, their coffee gone cold. Ethan hadn't moved from where I'd left him near the register. He'd taken his cover off and set it on the stool beside him, his hands at his sides the way they were when he was trying not to take up too much space.
I still had the envelope in my left hand. It was damp where I'd been holding it against the towel.
He looked at it once, then back at me. He didn't ask for it.
"You don't have to read it now," he said. "We can—"
"I do," I said. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to. I cleared my throat. "If I don't open it now I'm just going to leave it for you to find later and that's exactly what I was going to do before. I'm not doing that again."
The bell over the door jingled as the two guys left, one of them dropping a couple dollars by his mug. Mr. Henderson gave me a look from the kitchen window — you good? — and I nodded. He pulled the window shut and disappeared into the back, leaving the front to us.
I slid my thumb under the seal. The paper stuck a little. I had sealed it three nights ago at my kitchen table after my shift, telling myself I was being responsible, adult about it. The letter inside was one page, folded in thirds, my handwriting pressed hard enough to leave marks on the back.
My hands were shaking. I pressed the envelope flat against the metal edge of the counter to steady it, the white towel still bunched under my forearm. Ethan watched my hands, not my face. He was breathing steady, slow, his shoulders rising just enough to see under the OCP.
"I wrote this Tuesday," I said. "After I talked to your mom. I told her you weren't coming home for Christmas and that we needed space. That was a lie. You were supposed to still be at Cavazos for another two months. I thought if I said it first, it would be easier."
He didn't interrupt. His hands stayed at his sides, his fingers relaxed but not moving.
I unfolded the page. I didn't read the whole thing. I couldn't get through the address and the apology and the part about the apartment lease. My eyes stopped on the middle, on the one sentence I'd written and rewritten until it sounded honest instead of cruel.
I took a breath and read it out loud.
"I thought asking for a separation was kinder than waiting until I resented you for leaving."
The words hung there in the cafe air, louder than I'd meant them to be. The fluorescent lights buzzed. Outside, a truck went by on Main and sprayed water from the overcast morning onto the sidewalk.
I kept looking at the paper because I couldn't look at him yet.
"I didn't know how to be married to someone who was gone," I said, quieter now. "And I didn't know how to tell you that without sounding like I was blaming you for doing your job. So I just — I made it a decision. I put it in an envelope so I wouldn't have to say it to your face."
Ethan's breathing didn't change. He didn't step forward. He didn't reach for the letter.
"You're right," he said finally. His voice was even. "You did think that."
I looked up then. His eyes were on mine, red at the edges but steady. He wasn't trying to fix the sentence or soften it. He was just letting it be true.
"I meant it when I wrote it," I said. "I don't want you to think I didn't."
"I know you did," he said.
I laid the letter down on the metal counter between us. The paper caught a little on the damp spot where the towel had been. I smoothed it once with my palm and then pulled my hand back, leaving it there for him to take when he was ready. My other hand found the towel again, just to have something to hold.
He looked down at the letter, then back at me, his hands still at his sides.
May you like
"Thank you for reading it to me," he said.
It wasn't forgiveness. It wasn't leaving. It was just the truth out in the open, on the counter where we'd both been wiping and gripping and holding on for the last hour, with nowhere left to hide it.
