Page 20 of A Song for Another Woman

I turn my phone facedown like I’m a woman with self-control. Then I stare at the back of it. That’s less convincing.

The kitchen is too clean for midnight. Too white, too polished, too ready for a magazine photographer to walk in and ask for Mrs. Tyler by the island, maybe holding a mug or doing something domestic. The marble reflects the under-cabinet lights in long, pale strips. The vase on the breakfast table holds branches tastefully arranged. Outside the windows, Nashville glitters down the hill, all those little lights making promises to people who still believe in them.

I stand barefoot on the heated floor in Cade’s old T-shirt and pretend I’m not waiting. Waiting is pathetic. Waiting is what women do in songs right before the bridge humbles everybody. I’m not waiting. I’m giving him space.

That sounds better. More mature. More like something I’d say on the phone to June if I wanted her to make a disgusted noise and remind me I used to have a spine.

My phone stays dark. I know because I haven’t looked at it in twenty-three seconds.

On the counter, beside the phone, my peppermint tea has gone cold. I made it at ten because wine seemed like admittingsomething and water seemed too optimistic. The mug has a tiny chip near the handle. It’s the only thing in this kitchen I chose myself. I lift it, take one sip, and wince.

The phone doesn't move.

I’ve sent Cade three texts. Not five. Not ten. Three. That feels like an important distinction, though I’m not sure who I’m trying to impress.

The first one was casual:

Are you still at the studio?

The second was softer:

Can you call me when you get a second? I don’t want to fight. I just want to hear your voice.

The third one I regret because it sounded too much like the truth:

Please don’t disappear on me tonight.

Delivered. Not answered.

There are modern cruelties our mothers never had to build dignity around: read receipts, active status, the little bubble that appears and vanishes, taking your hope with it. A phone lighting up in someone’s hand while they decide, in real time, that you can wait.

I press my palms to the edge of the island and breathe through my nose. He’s busy. He’s tired. He’s probably in some room with terrible coffee and expensive guitars while Duke Ferris talks about momentum, heat, and narrative. Melody is probably there too, barefoot on a studio rug, making everyone feel like rules are things less interesting people invented.

I close my eyes. No. I’m not doing this. I’m not standing alone in this beautiful refrigerator of a house and imagining my husband into another woman’s orbit. I’m not going to give my mind a knife and ask it to start carving.

Cade said it would calm down. Soon, he said. Tomorrow, he said. The problem with marrying a man who writes songs is that he knows exactly how to make a word feel like shelter even when it has no walls.

My phone buzzes. I go still. One pulse against the marble, then another. My heart lifts so fast it embarrasses me. I grab the phone before I can talk myself into being slow about it.

Not Cade. Instagram.

Then another notification drops: TikTok. Then X. Then Instagram again. Three in a row, five, twelve, too many to count before they stack over one another and the screen becomes a bright, frantic mess.

For one second, I think something happened to him. The fear is so pure it almost feels like love before it’s had time to remember anything else.

Then I see my name:Emmy Tyler deserves better.

My stomach tightens. Another notification slides over it:For the record, I was always rooting for you. Sorry.

I stare at the words until they flatten. People love saying sorry when they’re already comfortable with your pain. It lets them stand near the damage without getting any on their shoes.

Another comment appears:This sucks, but did you really not see this coming? Hate when women don’t read the writing on the wall.

My fingers go cold around the phone. The writing on the wall. As if I haven’t been living pressed up against it for months, cheek to plaster, reading every mark in the dark. As if I haven’t studied the angles of photographs, the pauses in interviews, or the way Cade’s smile changes when Melody says his name. As ifI haven’t counted the nights he came home smelling like studio coffee and someone else’s perfume and told myself the second thing was probably in my head.

The screen keeps filling.

Girl, get up.