Why Not Now?

He waited. I had no intention of explaining every lie, every intercepted message, or the years I had spent believing Elise had abandoned me. Some truths were too explosive to drop into an office before nine in the morning.

“I’m not asking you to fire her,” I said. “I’m asking for distance. If that isn’t possible, I’ll go freelance.”

Ryan rubbed his bald head. “You won a Pulitzer as a freelancer, so I know that isn’t an empty threat.”

“It’s not a threat. It’s the only way I can keep doing good work.”

He sighed. “Fine. You can work from home until we find a permanent arrangement. You’ll need someone to attend production meetings for you.”

“I’ll choose the assistant.”

“Kitty?”

“Kitty.”

I stood, relieved. “I owe you.”

“You owe me a month without drama.”

“That may be beyond my abilities.”

I was carrying the first box of equipment toward the elevator when Victoria stepped into my path. Her hand settled over the curve of her stomach.

“What are you doing?”

“Moving out.”

“You’re working from home now?”

“Yes.”

“Because of me?”

“Because I need to think.”

Her smile was thin. “About Elise?”

I set the box down. “Don’t use her name as if you have any right to it.”

The color left her face. “You’re being dramatic.”

“You sent the letter, didn’t you?”

She glanced toward the open office. “Not here.”

“Why not here? You lied to me in private for fifteen years. At least give me the courtesy of hearing the truth in public.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You knew Elise tried to reach me. You knew she believed I wanted nothing to do with her. You watched me marry you while keeping the one fact that could have changed everything.”

Victoria’s hand tightened over her stomach. “I was protecting our marriage.”

“You were protecting your position in it.”

She looked at me with something that might once have been love. “You didn’t love me enough.”

“I loved the version of us you kept presenting. I did not love being manipulated.”

“And now you think Elise is going to save you?”

“No. I think I’m finally going to stop asking other people to decide my life.”

I picked up the box and left her beside the elevator.

Working from home did not make the memories quieter. It only removed the distractions. I found old contact sheets, notebooks, and a hard drive filled with photographs of Elise. I had told myself I kept them because I was a photographer. In reality, they were proof that the person I had been with her had existed.

At six, I called her.

“How was your first day away from the office?” she asked.

“Peaceful. Also, I discovered I own three cameras I never use.”

“That sounds like a serious problem.”

“I’m hoping you’ll help me solve it.”

She laughed, and the sound loosened something in my chest.

“Come over,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure I don’t want to spend another evening pretending I’m not thinking about you.”

When I arrived, she opened the door before I knocked. We stood there for a moment, both of us aware that the past had brought us to this threshold but could not tell us how to cross it.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

She touched my wrist. “You’re shaking.”

“I’ve wanted this for fifteen years.”

“So have I.”

The kiss began cautiously and became certain. We moved through the apartment without discussing what it meant. Every old hesitation broke under the simple fact of being together again.

Later, we lay side by side, holding hands beneath the quilt. The city hummed beyond the windows.

“I was never convinced you moved on,” Elise said. “The letter sounded so indifferent, but I couldn’t keep waiting forever. I had to believe you were gone so I could build a life with Julian.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s a ripple effect, Nolan. Victoria didn’t only take you from me. She took choices from both of us.”

“I know. But I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives inside that explanation.”

She turned toward me. “What do you want?”

I thought of the apartment, the empty years, and the way she had opened the door without making me ask twice.

“I want to wake up tomorrow and still be here.”

Her fingers tightened around mine. “Why not now?”

So I stayed. In the morning, I woke in her bed, alone—but for the first time, alone did not feel like the end.

For a few seconds I did not know where I was. Then I saw the cello case near the bookcase, the mug Elise had left on the nightstand, and the sweater folded over a chair. I heard water running somewhere downstairs.

I dressed quietly and followed the sound. Elise stood at the kitchen window, holding two cups of coffee. She turned when she saw me.

“You’re still here,” she said.

“I said I wanted to wake up here.”

“You did.”

She handed me a cup. Neither of us mentioned the complications waiting outside the apartment: Victoria, the divorce, Julian, Ivy, and the years we could never recover. Those things were not gone. They were simply no longer the only things in the room.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“Now I show up.”

“That’s not a plan.”

“It’s the beginning of one. I’ll tell Ivy the truth. I’ll stop letting Victoria decide what I’m allowed to know. And I’ll ask you what you want instead of assuming I already know.”

Elise looked toward the bright window. “I want to believe you.”

“You don’t have to do it all at once.”

She reached across the counter and took my hand. “Neither do you.”

We drank our coffee in silence. It was an ordinary morning, which made it feel miraculous.

Before I left, Elise wrote her address on a scrap of paper and tucked it into my pocket, even though I had already memorized it. I kept the paper anyway. Some things were worth carrying twice.

At the subway entrance, I unfolded the paper once more. Elise had added a note beneath the address: “Call before you come over, even if you think I’m awake.”

I smiled and put it back in my pocket. It was not a grand promise. It was better—an ordinary rule for an ordinary future, the kind we had both thought we had lost.