When I rushed down the corridor that night, my hands were trembling so badly I could hardly hold the knob of the first door I found. It was one of the guest rooms. I did not care. I slipped inside, turned the lock, and pressed my back against the door as though that would keep the world out. My chest rose and fell in shallow bursts, and I could feel the pounding of my heart in my ears.
I had never seen Maxwell like that before. His face had been so tight, his jaw so set, his voice so sharp that it felt like something in me cracked. For years, he had been my safe place, the one person who never frightened me, the one man whose anger I thought I would never taste. But tonight, his anger had flared in a way that shook me to my core.
I slid down against the door until I was sitting on the floor. The guest room was neat and still, a little too polished, like a room no one ever truly lived in. It felt strange to be hiding there, in a part of the house I rarely even entered. I should have been in our bedroom, in our bed, but I could not face him. I could not bear to see that look in his eyes again.
Part of me kept waiting for him. I sat on the floor, then on the bed, straining my ears for the sound of his footsteps in the hall. I thought maybe he would knock softly, ask me to come back. Maybe he would speak to me through the door, try to calm me, try to explain. That was what I told myself. That was what a part of me still hoped for. But the minutes passed. The silence stretched. The house was too quiet, and no sound of him came.
I curled up on the bed and pulled the blanket around me, but it did not warm me. I stared at the ceiling, at the shadows moving faintly across it, and my thoughts would not stop.
I replayed every word we had thrown at each other, wincing at how sharp my own had been. I had said divorce. I had put that word into the air between us. The truth was, I never wanted that. Not really. I wanted him back. I wanted us back. I wanted the version of our life where laughter filled the walls, where I felt like his wife and not like some stranger sitting across from him at a dinner table.
Tears slid down my cheeks, though I tried to hold them back. I bit my lip to keep quiet. It was not just his anger that haunted me,it was the coldness in the silence that followed.
The night dragged on. I turned from one side to the other, unable to close my eyes. The guest room bed was too stiff, the sheets smelled faintly of lavender but not of home. It was the kind of room meant for visitors, not for me. I felt like a visitor too, exiled from my own space, from my own marriage.
Every time I thought of opening the door and walking down to our room, something in me stopped. What if he was still awake, still angry? What if he turned me away? I could not bear it. So I stayed.
Hours passed until I noticed the faint gray light filtering through the curtains. Dawn. My eyes burned from lack of sleep. My body ached from lying in one place too long. That was when I heard it.
The sound of the front door slamming shut downstairs was so loud in the stillness that it made me flinch. I froze where I sat. Then came the low roar of the car engine. A few seconds later, tires screeched across the driveway before fading into the distance.
My chest sank. He had left. He had left without saying a word to me.
I sat there for a long time, the silence pressing against me even harder now that he was gone. I had expected anger. I had expected shouting. What I had not expected was this nothing. No knock. No attempt to reach me. Just silence, then the sound of him walking away.
When I finally unlocked the door and stepped into the hall, the house felt different. Colder. Larger. I walked slowly through the corridor, my bare feet making soft sounds against the floor. Everything looked the same the elegant paintings, the wide windows, the polished wood,but it all felt wrong. This mansion that had once felt like a dream now felt like a tomb.
I made my way downstairs, pausing at the dining room, where the table sat untouched. He had not even bothered with breakfast. The sight twisted something inside me.
I could not stand to stay in there any longer. I pulled on a sweater and stepped outside. The cool morning air rushed against my skin, a little sharp, but it helped me breathe. The garden spread out before me, neat rows of roses glistening with drops of water from the sprinklers.
I walked slowly, my hands tucked into the sleeves of my sweater. Past the fountain, down the stone path, until I reached the wide open field at the back of the mansion. I stopped there.
And suddenly, I could see it all. I could see us.
I remembered the afternoons when Maxwell used to chase me across this field. I would laugh until I fell onto the grass, and he would catch me, breathless but smiling, his arms wrapping around me as though I was his whole world. He would hold me down playfully, kiss me until I begged him to stop, only to pull me back again. I had felt so loved, so safe, so wanted. Those days had been simple. They had been ours.
Now the field was empty. The silence was louder than ever.
I sat on the stone bench at the edge of the garden and lowered my head. My chest ached with a deep heaviness. I did not want to lose him. I did not want to give up on us. I only wanted what we once had.
As the thoughts swirled in my head, my phone buzzed. I pulled it out, my heart lurching with a foolish hope that it might be Maxwell. But the name on the screen read: Grandma.
I swallowed hard and pressed accept. My voice shook as I whispered, "Grandma…"
Her warm, gentle voice flowed through the phone, soft and steady, like a hand reaching out to hold mine. For the first time since last night, I felt like maybe I was not completely alone.