Sometimes the calls were awkward.
Sometimes we argued.
At least the arguments were happening while choices were still choices.
Three months into the project, Bennett told Nathan the permanent team was officially being considered.
Nathan called me that evening.
He sounded nervous.
“Bennett asked if I’d be interested in leading it.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
I waited.
Nathan continued.
“I told him I needed to talk to my wife first.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
It didn’t erase what he’d done.
It didn’t undo the dinner, the lies by omission, or the fact that Susan had once known more about my husband’s future than I did.
But it was the first time I could see the difference between an apology and a change.
I had spent that awful dinner believing another woman might take my husband away from me.
Eventually I understood that the bigger danger had never been Susan.
It was Nathan deciding that marriage meant telling me about his future once he’d already figured it out.
If we were going to stay married, that had to change.
Not after the next decision.
Before it.
