Chapter 6 — She Found the Wrong Husband

I turned the kitchen light back on.

The blue line remained.

Through the peephole, the hallway was empty. I listened for movement, then opened the door with the chain still fastened.

The book lay on the mat.

It had been at the bottom of a recycling bin. I had heard it land beneath the flattened cardboard.

Now there wasn't a mark on it.

I picked it up, closed the door, and checked the hallway again. Nothing. No footsteps on the stairs, no closing elevator.

The glow faded as I opened the cover.

Blank.

I took a photograph of it on the table, then put it in the desk drawer and turned the small brass key.

That wasn't a solution. It was enough to let me finish putting the dishes away.

Before bed, I called Mom.

"Did you pack any books with my sweaters?"

"I only did the kitchen things. Why?"

"Just checking."

"You sound tired."

I sat on the edge of my new bed.

"Will you and Dad come over this weekend?"

"We only left three hours ago."

"I know."

Her voice softened.

"Of course we will."

* * *

"You can only write your own choice," the woman behind the bookshop counter told Vivian.

Outside, Bellwether was closing for the evening of October 26. Someone dragged a sign inside. A bus passed with its windows lit.

"Then I'll choose him."

"He isn't a place you can claim."

Vivian glanced down at her ring. She had forgotten she was wearing it.

"I need to speak to him."

"That may be all you get."

The old woman slid the book back across the counter.

Vivian opened to the last page. Her hand hovered there.

She had walked out of a wedding because she couldn't bear an empty place beside the groom. Now there was a whole life she might have to leave behind before she reached Julian.

"Can I come back?"

"The passage isn't closed."

It was an answer with something missing from it.

Vivian took the book home without writing.

In the morning, October 27, she sat beside Maisie while Nora braided her hair.

"Are you finding Daddy?" Maisie asked.

Vivian had been saying she was making calls. Children knew when adults were changing the shape of a question.

"I'm trying."

"Tell him the bear likes his shoes best."

"I will."

Downstairs, she confirmed with her aunt that she could remain at the house. Nora had the school schedule, the doctors' numbers, everything Julian had assembled. Theo was not to collect Maisie or visit without Vivian's explicit agreement.

"How long will you be away?" her aunt asked.

"I don't know yet."

She left the practical instructions anyway. For once, uncertainty didn't entitle her to leave other people guessing.

In the townhouse, she put her engagement ring on the dresser.

Then she opened the book.

I am leaving this life to find Julian.

The sentence held.

She thought of the phone on his bedside table, the care folder, the tuxedo folded without a wrinkle.

He had meant to go.

She added no command that he return. Even now, some part of her believed she would only need to reach him to make that happen.

Blue light crossed the page.

She held on.

* * *

On January 25, Morgan asked me to bring the finished samples into the fitting room.

The buyer was already there, turning the hem of a coat between her fingers.

I had spent two weeks getting that hem to hang properly. The first sample twisted. The second looked right on the stand and pulled when the model moved.

This was the third.

I watched the model put it on, button it, reach forward, sit.

The coat moved with her.

"That's the one," the buyer said.

Morgan looked at me.

"Walk her through the changes."

So I did. Not an apology for needing three attempts. Not an explanation of who had helped me get into the room. I showed the altered seam, the added ease, the pocket she could reach without lifting the whole coat.

The buyer ordered the small production run.

Afterward, Morgan set the approved sample on my table.

"Your name goes on the development sheet. Make sure it's there before we send it."

I typed it myself.

Owen Mercer.

For a while, I watched the cursor blink after the last letter.

Then I called Ben and asked if he wanted dinner.

"Are you buying?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm very proud of you."

We ate at a crowded place near the studio. He told me about a plumbing disaster at his apartment. I told him about the coat.

Halfway through the meal, I realized I had been listening to someone without checking my phone beneath the table.

Ben lifted his glass.

"To the coat that finally learned how to sit down."

I laughed hard enough to spill my drink.

When we parted, he asked whether I needed help with the remaining boxes.

"Saturday?"

"Text me."

I walked home carrying leftovers, thinking about where to put a cutting table if I moved the couch.

A woman was sitting on the low wall outside my building.

Dark coat. Bare hands folded between her knees.

I noticed the posture first. Too still for someone waiting for a ride.

Then she raised her head.

My feet stopped.

Vivian stood so quickly she had to catch the wall.

"Julian."

The bag slipped against my fingers. I tightened my grip before it fell.

She was here.

Not a shape caught in a window. Not a face I had accidentally given to a stranger.

Vivian, with a pale line on her forearm where the van accident had scraped her skin.

"How?" I said.

"The book. There was a woman—"

She started toward me.

I stepped back.

That stopped her more effectively than a shout.

"I've been looking for you."

"Where's Maisie?"

"With Nora and my aunt. At the house. She's safe."

I let myself breathe.

"What day is it there?"

Her eyebrows pulled together.

"October twenty-seventh. Why?"

I took out my phone and showed her the date.

January 25.

She looked from the screen to the building behind me.

"No."

"I've been here three months."

Her gaze moved over my face, my shoulders, the groceries in my hand.

"You look well."

"I am."

For an instant, she seemed about to smile.

"Then we can go back. We can talk properly. I didn't marry him. Maisie keeps asking about you."

There it was again. A plan made before I had spoken.

Behind the locked glass door, the lobby lights were warm and ordinary. My name was printed beside the apartment number on the directory.

I could go upstairs. I could leave her saying Julian into a street where nobody knew him.

Instead, I walked under the entrance light.

"Come here. There's something you need to see."

She followed, hope changing the way she held herself.

I set down the bag and took my driver's license from my wallet.

She read it.

Her eyes returned to the name.

"Owen Mercer?"

"Yes."

"Why do you have this?"

I unlocked my phone and opened the photograph Mom had sent after the move. Dad and I holding opposite ends of a bookshelf, both laughing because we'd assembled it upside down.

The next photograph included Mom, taken with the timer after we'd fixed it.

Vivian stared.

"Who are they?"

"My parents. Ruth and Daniel."

"Your parents are dead. I went to—"

She stopped.

I waited while she looked at the photographs again, then at the scar on my chin, then at the license still between my fingers.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

"Someone who had a life before your story," I said. "And I'm not the husband you get to take home."