"I know."
"I also don't want to hand Sophie a broken house because my pride wants a clean story." He looked at Rachel. The hazel eyes were tired and terribly clear. "I'll try. Not forgive. Try. There's a difference, and if you need the word forgive to feel better, you don't get it yet. You get Thursday appointments and separate bedrooms and the truth when I ask for it. You get a husband who comes home. I get a wife who doesn't treat my travel as a vacancy. If either of us can't live on those terms in six months, we stop pretending the terms are a personality."
"Yes," Rachel said.
Patricia wrote something down. Outside, a November wind moved the bare trees along the parking lot. The decision did not feel like a movie. It felt like a form you sign when you are still shaking, because not signing is also a form.
That night Rachel sent Andre the email she had owed him since the lights came on. Jason read it first, standing at her shoulder, and he did not change a word, though she felt the heat of him when he reached the sentence I will not see you again.
Andre, I'm sorry. You were not a game, and you were also not told the whole truth about a marriage I had not actually left. Jason knows. I am staying and trying to repair what I broke, if it can be repaired. Please don't answer. Please don't wait. You deserve a life that is not organized around another woman's cowardice. I'm grateful for the way you saw me. I used that seeing badly. Goodbye.