You Promised Me Tonight

"You're leaving me six days after I gave birth to celebrate another woman's birthday?"

Roman stopped fastening his coat. Behind me, our daughter made a small, restless sound in her bassinet. I waited for him to turn toward her. For a moment, I still believed that sound might accomplish what I couldn't.

"It's dinner, Erin. I'll be back before nine."

"We were going to bathe her together. You said you'd take the next feeding so I could sleep."

His eyes moved to the tiny towel folded on the dresser. He had forgotten. I watched him remember, and somehow that hurt more than if he hadn't recognized it at all.

"Tomorrow," he said. "We'll do it tomorrow."

Our daughter was six days old. Tomorrow was an enormous distance when I hadn't slept for more than an hour at a time.

I stood in the doorway wearing the robe he'd bought me during my pregnancy. It was beautiful, pale blue silk, and completely impractical. One sleeve carried a dried patch of formula. My hair hadn't been brushed since morning. Every time I shifted my weight, something in my body protested.

Roman looked ready to be photographed.

Black coat. White shirt. The watch I'd given him for our second anniversary. He was thirty-four, with dark hair that never stayed neatly combed and a face people found handsome until they saw him angry.

In Milwaukee, men who threatened other men for a living lowered their voices around my husband.

At home, I was apparently asking too much when I asked for two hours.

"It's Laya's birthday, isn't it?"

He looked at me then.

"Yes."

Laya Crane. Beautiful, composed, always arriving at the right party in the right dress. She knew his friends, his history, the names nobody explained to me. For eight months, she had somehow required more of his attention than anyone else.

He called her an old family friend.

I had stopped asking what kind.

"I asked you yesterday to stay tonight."

"And I heard you."

"Then why are you putting on your coat?"

His mouth tightened. "I have something to finish."

"With her."

"Don't do this."

There it was. The familiar instruction, delivered quietly enough that he could pretend it wasn't one.

Don't embarrass yourself. Don't make me explain. Don't turn what I know into something I have to tell you.

I reached for his sleeve.

It was such a small habit that I hadn't noticed doing it until his eyes dropped to my hand. When I was overwhelmed, I caught his cuff. At crowded dinners, in unfamiliar rooms, during appointments where I was afraid to ask the next question.

He used to close his hand over mine.

Once, while we were dating, he'd abandoned an entire restaurant table because I'd touched his sleeve and whispered that I needed air. He'd stood with me outside in the cold, holding my coat shut, until I stopped shaking.

Tonight he brushed his thumb over my knuckles, then gently removed my hand.

"I promised her I'd be there."

"You promised me too."

The hallway went quiet.

From downstairs came the faint click of the front door. His driver was waiting.

Roman glanced toward Sophie's bassinet. Six days earlier, he'd held her with an expression I'd never seen on his face before. He had looked terrified. He'd kissed my damp forehead and said, "You did it, sweetheart. Look what you did."

I'd believed that moment had changed everything.

Now he picked up his keys.

"Before nine," he said again.

I stepped aside.

He hesitated, and I hated how quickly hope returned. I could still have it. One decision, one coat dropped on the chair, and I would forgive the argument before it was over.

"Go, Roman."

He touched my cheek. I turned away before I could lean into his hand.

Then he left.

The SUV disappeared into November rain. I stayed at the window until the red taillights vanished beyond the gate, then returned to our daughter.

Sophie's room was warm and lovely. Cream walls, pink curtains, the rocking chair I'd chosen myself. Roman had complained that the chair looked too small. When the delivery men arrived, he'd sat in it for ten minutes to make sure it wouldn't tip.

A little rabbit watched from the dresser. He'd brought it home from Paris, carrying it in his hand because he didn't want it crushed in his luggage.

"I run an organization," he'd told me when I laughed. "I can transport a rabbit."

I touched its soft ear, then picked up Sophie.

"Your father has terrible timing," I whispered.

She blinked at me, entirely unimpressed by family politics.

At eight forty-two, she drank half her bottle. At nine three, I sent Roman a message.

Sophie is awake. Are you coming home?

I watched the screen longer than I wanted to admit.

Nothing.

At nine thirty-one, I called. At nine forty-eight, I tried again. Both calls went unanswered.

I knew what people would say if I complained. You have a beautiful house. You have staff. Your husband gives you everything.

The housekeeper had gone home at six. The cook had left food in the refrigerator. There were two guards outside, neither of whom could hold my daughter while I showered.

And even if ten people had been standing in that kitchen, I had asked for him.

At a foundation dinner three months earlier, Marlene Russo had smiled over her wine and told Laya that Roman always made time for special people.

Laya had laughed. Someone else had mentioned a private lunch.

I'd looked at my husband, waiting.

He'd taken my elbow and said we were leaving.

In the car, he'd called them bored women with nothing better to discuss.

"Then tell them they're wrong," I'd said.

"I'm not giving gossip an audience."

I had sat beside him all the way home, feeling as though he'd rescued me from a fire while refusing to extinguish it.

At ten seven, Sophie began crying again. I lifted her carefully, pressing my lips to her head while I walked the length of the nursery.

"I know," I whispered. "I'm tired too."

When she finally settled, I lowered her into the bassinet and went to rinse a bottle. My back hurt. My eyes burned. I stood at the sink and considered calling his driver, then his brother, then anyone who could tell Roman to look at his phone.

I hated myself for considering it.

My phone vibrated against the counter.

Unknown number. A voicemail.

The transcription mentioned my husband. Then Laya. I turned off the water and pressed play.

"Mrs. Moretti, my name is Elise Warren. I work at the Bellamy Hotel. Your husband is here with Laya Crane. The private room is booked in his name, and he asked us to clear the hallway after ten. She's been telling people tonight is when everything changes. I don't know what you've been told. I have a sister who went through something like this, and I couldn't stay quiet."

The message ended.

Across the hall, Sophie sighed in her sleep.

I looked at the bottle in my hand. At the clock. At my husband's name above the two calls he hadn't answered.

Then I went to pick up our daughter.