Chapter 8 - Warm Food, No One Waiting Alone
That evening we went home. The anniversary pasta was still sitting in the fridge. Nathan reached for his keys, and I assumed he was planning to take me somewhere.
Instead he opened the refrigerator. "Can I reheat this?"
"You'd better," I muttered. "I spent forty minutes on that sauce."
He smiled. The dessert had collapsed overnight and the pasta had gone soft, but he took a bite anyway.
"This is really good."
"It was better yesterday."
He winced. "Fair."
We ate in silence for a while. Then I said, "I can forgive dinner going cold."
He looked up.
"I don't know yet how to forgive realizing I had to book an appointment to find out who my husband actually is."
He nodded. No defense. No dramatic promise that he'd never work late again. I didn't want one. His work mattered. So did our marriage.
"I won't decide on my own anymore that you can always just wait," he said.
That was closer.
His phone buzzed. We both looked at it. His hand moved toward the screen automatically, then stopped. He looked at me instead. "It's a client."
"Interview tomorrow?"
He nodded. "Can I take ten minutes?"
I glanced at the clock. "Ten."
He answered without leaving the table. The woman on the other end sounded like she was spiraling — I could only catch fragments. Then he asked, "What are you afraid they'll ask you?"
A pause.
"The fifteen-year gap?"
Another pause. He smiled faintly. "So what have you been doing for fifteen years?"
Silence on the other end. Then he looked across the table at me, and I already knew what was coming next.
Children. Budgets. Appointments. Years of invisible work about to get a name.
He reached across the table with his free hand. I took it.
The call was still going. Our marriage still had things left to repair. Nothing had magically resolved itself in one evening.
May you like
But the food was warm. Nathan was home. His hand stayed in mine.
And for the first time in a long time, nobody at our table was waiting alone.
