Page 58 of Never Forget
He knew I was filing for guardianship. I'd told him everything—the lawyer, the paperwork, the hearing. He never once said he wasn't ready. Never asked what this would mean for us. So I assumed it wasn't going to be a problem.
"I really thought..." The words caught in my throat. "I thought you'd be."
"I'm sorry." His voice was quiet. "I wish I could give you a different answer."
He meant it. I could hear that he meant it. Mark wasn't a liar. He wasn't stringing me along. He was telling me the truth about who he was and what he wanted, and it just didn't match what I needed anymore.
"Well then I guess that answers your question," I said. "About when I'm coming home."
"Jamie—"
"I'm not angry, Mark. I'm really not." And I wasn't. I was sad in a way that went deeper than anger. "We just want different things."
The silence between us was heavy. Full of a year of dinners and Sunday mornings and a Tribeca apartment we'd never live in together.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"Me too."
We said goodbye. I don't remember what words we used. Probably the usual ones. Take care of yourself. I hope you find what you're looking for. The kind of things people say when they're trying to end something gently.
I set the phone on the table and sat there in the quiet house.
Rosie was asleep down the hall. The raised seal on the guardianship papers caught the light.
I became a mother today. And lost the man I thought I'd spend my life with.
The Tribeca apartment. Mark's world. The future we'd sketched together over wine and takeout, lying in his bed while the city glowed outside the window. All of it dissolved like smoke.
It was the right decision. I knew that. Rosie needed a mother who was all in, not one with a foot in a life that didn't have room for her.
I sat there until the kitchen went dark around me.
CHAPTER 14
Sam
The drive to Jamie's took fifteen minutes from my apartment. Long enough to think too much.
She had guardianship now. The papers were signed, the seal pressed into the corner, Rosie officially hers. The proposal wasn't finished yet. We still had gaps to fill and voices to gather, but the thing that had kept her anchored to Havensworth was done.
She had a life waiting in New York. A career she'd spent years building. An apartment, probably. Friends. I didn't know if she'd go back. She hadn't said. Maybe she didn't know yet either.
What I did know was that I wanted to spend as much time with them as I could before they left. However long that was.
Jamie opened the door before I could knock. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.
"Rosie's down for her nap," she said, stepping back to let me in. Her voice was steady, but her face told a different story.
"What's wrong?"
She shook her head. Tried to smile. It didn't land.
"Jamie."
She hesitated. Took a breath like she was bracing herself.
"Mark and I broke up."
