Page 285 of The Professor's Wife

“I couldn’t leave it there,” he said.

My eyes burned.

Oliver might have read it. He might have read every desperate word and laughed at how hard I had fought to preserve pieces of myself.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Tristan’s face changed, but he didn’t move closer.

I looked down again.

We are Daisy—

Not I.

We.

As though I had already known I would become divided. The woman inside the shed. The wife inside Oliver’s house. Theperson standing here now, staring at a message from herself that felt as though it had crossed something impossible to reach her.

As I lost myself to these thoughts, Tristan looked toward the balcony. He crossed the room and slid open the glass door. Cool morning air moved through the stale heat.

Before stepping through, he glanced toward the hotel door.

“It’s open, Daze.”

My gaze followed his.

Nothing stood between me and the door of the hotel. Did he think I wanted to flee? That I thought he was stopping me?

“You can leave,” he said. “I won’t stop you. I won’t follow you.”

His voice roughened.

“But please don’t go back to him.”

Then he stepped onto the balcony.

The glass door remained open behind him.

Yes, I could leave. I could reduce him to a crazed, bereft musician who had followed my husband into the place that haunted me—

I stopped those thoughts straightaway. That wasn’t what he was. Not to me.

I stood beside the table and stared at the note.

At Rowe’s name.

June’s.

Mine.

I didn’t know how long I remained there. Long enough for my breathing to settle. I folded the paper carefully along its old creases and held it against my chest.

Then I looked toward the balcony.

From where I stood, I could see Tristan sitting in one of the wicker chairs with his back partly turned to me, one hand pressed against his ribs. He stared out at the ocean.

I crossed the room. Stepped onto the balcony. Looked out.