I wondered whether he’d felt the same shock I felt when he told me about Blythe.
Probably not.
But at least he was beginning to understand that his decision had consequences beyond his own uncertainty.
My phone rang again.
I let it.
Then I turned off the sound.
The next morning, Maribel received a call from Desmond.
She listened for several minutes.
Then told him I was safe and that he should respect my request for distance.
When she hung up, she looked toward me.
“He wants to know where you are.”
I took a breath.
“Did you tell him?”
“No.”
She smiled gently.
“I told him he could communicate through your attorney about practical matters.”
I felt grateful.
For years, Desmond had assumed Maribel would encourage me to compromise whenever we disagreed.
He didn’t understand that she had watched me struggle with the past several weeks.
She wasn’t interested in helping him pressure me into returning.
She wanted me to make my own decision.
That afternoon, Desmond sent a longer message.
“I know I handled things badly. I should have explained how I was feeling before leaving. But you can’t throw away six years of marriage because I needed time to understand my past.”
I read it twice.
Then opened the notes app on my phone.
I began typing a reply.
Deleted it.
Started again.
Eventually, I wrote:
“I didn’t throw away six years, Desmond. You told me you wanted to explore a relationship with someone else. I accepted that you had made your choice. Now I’m making mine.”
I sent it.
He called immediately.
For a moment, I considered ignoring the call.
Then I answered.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
His voice sounded strained.
“It means I’m not returning to the house.”
There was silence.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know every detail of the future yet. But I’m moving forward with our separation.”
He exhaled sharply.
“Corrine, don’t be ridiculous.”
I closed my eyes.
For a moment, the old instinct returned.
The urge to apologize for making him uncomfortable.
Then I took a breath.
“I’m serious.”
He was quiet.
Then said, “I haven’t even decided what I want.”
I looked toward the window.
“That’s no longer my responsibility.”
He sounded startled.
“What?”
“Desmond, you asked me to wait while you decided whether you wanted to be with Blythe. I didn’t agree to that.”
He sighed.
“You’re giving up on us?”
I felt tears gathering.
“No.”
My voice trembled.
“I’m refusing to keep our marriage alive by myself.”
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then he said quietly, “Things with Blythe haven’t been what I expected.”
I closed my eyes.
I didn’t want to hear about his disappointment.
I didn’t want to become the person he returned to whenever another relationship became difficult.
“That’s something you need to work out without me,” I answered.
He sounded wounded.
“I miss you.”
The words hurt.
Because part of me had wanted to hear them.
For weeks, I’d wondered whether he’d noticed the distance growing between us.
Now he was telling me he missed me.
But missing someone wasn’t the same as respecting them.
I took a slow breath.
“I miss parts of our life too.”
He became quiet.
Then I continued.
“But I can’t return to it simply because you’re uncomfortable with the consequences of leaving.”
I ended the call.
Then sat in silence.
For the first time, I felt the strange combination of sadness and relief that comes when you finally say something you’ve been afraid to say.
Over the following week, I continued looking for an apartment.
I viewed several places.
One was dark and smelled faintly of old carpeting.
Another had beautiful windows but overlooked a busy intersection.
A third was attractive but far beyond what I wanted to spend.
Then Maribel and I visited a small two-bedroom apartment near a park.
It was on the second floor of a quiet building.
The kitchen was simple.
The living room had large windows.
And the spare bedroom was small enough to become a study without tempting me to fill it with things I didn’t need.
I stood near the window.
Sunlight fell across the floor.
For the first time since Desmond left, I imagined a future that didn’t include waiting for him.
A reading chair near the glass.
A small dining table.
Plants on the windowsill.
Bookshelves.
A soft blue comforter.
I looked toward Maribel.
“I like it.”
She smiled.
“I can tell.”
I contacted the leasing office.
Provided the required documentation.
And arranged to move in after my application was approved.
It wasn’t a grand apartment.
But it was mine to choose.
And that felt important.
Then another unexpected message arrived.
It came from an unfamiliar email address.
The sender was Blythe Morrison.
The subject line read:
“You deserve to know something.”
I stared at the screen.
For several seconds, I considered deleting it without reading.
But I was tired of decisions being made around me while I remained unaware of what was happening.
So I opened the email.
Blythe’s message was careful.
She wrote that Desmond had told her our marriage was already over in every meaningful sense.
He’d said we had been discussing separation for months.
He’d described us as living together temporarily while arranging the practical details.
She said she’d believed him.
Then she wrote:
“I didn’t understand that you were still expecting to continue your marriage. When Desmond returned home and found you’d left, he seemed genuinely shocked. That was when I began to realize he had told us different versions of the situation.”
I stared at the words.
She continued.
“I don’t know what he told you about me. I can only tell you that he led me to believe he had already made a decision about his marriage before we began seeing each other.”
There was no request for forgiveness.
No attempt to become my friend.
She ended by apologizing for her part in a situation she now understood had been more complicated than Desmond admitted.
I read the message several times.
Then I looked toward the kitchen table.
There was a stack of moving estimates beside my coffee cup.
I thought about the nights Desmond had come home late.
The dinner I’d prepared.
The trip to Italy we’d discussed.