Chapter 4: The Conversation He Asked For
My mother took the twins at nine the next morning.
She didn't ask questions.
She'd heard something in my voice on the phone and she'd simply said, "I'll be there at nine," and she was — standing at the door with her arms out, lifting one baby and then the other, kissing their foreheads, loading them into her car without a word about why.
She paused at the door on her way out.
"Call me when you're ready," she said.
"I will."
She looked at me for a moment the way mothers do — reading something behind the eyes that has nothing to do with what's being said.
Then she nodded and left.
Finn was in the kitchen when I came back inside.
He'd made coffee.
He'd set out two mugs.
He was standing with his back to me, looking out the window at the small yard where we'd talked about building a swing set when the twins were older.
"Sit down," I said.
He turned.
He looked like he hadn't slept.
Good.
We sat across from each other at the kitchen table.
"Talk," I said.
He wrapped both hands around his mug.
"I don't want to lose this family."
"You should have thought about that four months ago."
"I know.
I know that." He looked up.
"I made a terrible mistake."
"Is it over?
With Dana?"
A pause.
One second too long.
"Finn."
"I ended it this morning.
I called her before you woke up."
"You called her this morning.
After I found out last night." I let that sit between us.
"Not four months ago.
Not three months ago.
This morning."
"I didn't know how to end it.
I kept telling myself it wasn't serious."
"But she thought tonight was everything."
He flinched.
"I handled it badly."
"You handled our marriage badly.
You handled my body like it was a project you'd lost interest in.
You handed me a portrait of a woman who doesn't exist and told me that's what you were waiting for.
And while I was feeding our children and trying to hold myself together, you were with her." I set my mug down.
"So don't tell me you handled it badly.
Tell me the truth."
He was quiet for a moment.
"I felt like I was losing you."
"To what?"
"To the babies.
To exhaustion.
To everything that wasn't us."
"That's called having a family, Finn.
That's what we signed up for."
"I know."
"Do you?
Because it seems like you thought signing up for a family meant I would stay exactly the same while everything changed around us.
And when I didn't — when my body changed, when my attention shifted, when I stopped being the woman in the photos — you went looking for her somewhere else."
His jaw worked.
He didn't deny it.
"I want to fix this," he said.
"I don't know if it can be fixed."
"Nora—"
"I'm not saying it's over.
I'm saying I don't know.
And I need you to understand that *I don't know* is not an invitation to convince me.
It's the truth.
The only truth I have right now."
He nodded slowly.
Then his phone buzzed on the table between us.
We both looked at it.
The name on the screen was Dana.
Finn reached for it.
I put my hand flat on the table.
"If you answer that," I said, "we're done.
Right now.
No more conversation."
He looked at the phone.
He looked at me.
His hand stayed where it was.
The phone buzzed again.
Then stopped.
"I thought you ended it this morning," I said.
"I did."
"Then why is she calling?"
He didn't have an answer.
And in the silence that followed, something shifted in the room — a small, quiet shift, like a door that had been open for months finally showing us how far it had swung.
I stood up and took my coffee to the window.
Outside, the yard was empty.
No swing set.
No children.
Just the small square of grass we'd never quite gotten around to doing anything with.
"I need a few days," I said.
"I need you to stay somewhere else."
"Nora—"
"That's not a discussion.
That's what I need."
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then he pushed back his chair and stood.
"Okay," he said.
"I'll go to my brother's."
He walked toward the hallway.
At the doorway he stopped.
"For what it's worth," he said, "the portrait was stupid.
I knew it the moment I saw your face.
I just didn't know how to take it back."
I didn't turn around.
"You could have said sorry."
He didn't respond to that.
I heard him in the bedroom, opening the closet, pulling out a bag.
Twenty minutes later, the front door closed.
I stood at the window a little longer.
Then I picked up my phone and opened a new message thread.
I typed: *He's gone for a few days.
I need to think.
But first — I need to know everything you saw outside that restaurant.*
I sent it to Carla.
Her reply came in less than a minute.
*Come over.
And bring the monitor.
You shouldn't be alone tonight.*
I looked around the kitchen.
The two mugs.
The cold coffee.
The phone face-up on the table with Dana's name still on the screen.
May you like
I picked up Finn's mug and poured it down the sink.
Then I got my coat.
