Page 23 of A Song for Another Woman

June

Do you want me to come get you?

I look toward the front of the house.

For years, I’ve thought of leaving as something loud: a fight, a slammed door, a suitcase, Cade’s face changing when he finally understood I wasn't a prop he could leave in one room and collect later. But the first leaving happens here, quietly, before he comes home, before I say a word. It happens in the space between his sentence and my next breath.

I type carefully:

Get the guest room ready. I’m coming to stay for a while.

I send it. The message sits there, small and plain, carrying the weight of my whole life.

June replies:

Always ready. I love you.

I press the phone against the counter and lower my head. Not crying, not yet. Just standing, breathing, and letting the last fragile hope go dark without reaching to turn it back on.

Somewhere in Nashville, my husband is in a room where he feels wanted. Maybe he’s laughing. Maybe he’s telling himself he’ll call me in a minute. Maybe he thinks marriage is a line he can stand behind while still looking over it.

I touch my ring with my thumb. I don’t take it off. Not yet. That belongs to a different moment, a different room, a different kind of courage.

Tonight, I only let myself understand.

I’m not going to beg a man to respect the promise he made to me.

I’m not going to be the lock on somebody else’s door.

I’m not going to be the only thing standing between a man and what he wants.

Chapter Six

EMMY

The zipper catches on one of Cade’s old sweatshirts.

For a second, I just stand there with my hand on the duffel, staring at the gray cotton caught in the teeth. It’s soft from years of washing, the cuffs stretched out, the collar ruined by a tiny rip from some motel laundry room in Kentucky before anyone knew his name. I wore it the first winter we were married because the heat in our rental kept dying, and Cade said very seriously that a husband’s primary job was providing warmth and occasional tacos.

I loved him then in a way that made ordinary things feel permanent.

The zipper won’t move. I take the sweatshirt out. That's the first thing I leave behind.

The closet light hums above me. Around my feet, the marble floor is cold because I turned off the heat hours ago without meaning to. I have one duffel, my phone, my wallet, the keys to Daddy’s old truck, and the blue folder of sketches tucked against my ribs like something living.

Porch. Nook. Dogwood. A girl at nineteen drew herself a life with no cameras in it.

I don’t pack jewelry. I don’t pack gowns. I don’t pack the shoes a stylist labeled essential, though I can't imagine a less essential object than a heel chosen by someone who's never had to run from her own marriage before dawn.

In the bathroom, my reflection looks calm. That almost offends me.

My eyes are dry. My hair is pulled into a loose knot. Cade’s T-shirt hangs off one shoulder, soft and familiar against skin that feels like it belongs to a stranger. I look like a woman about to make coffee. I look like a woman who might go downstairs and answer emails, approve social captions, or send reminders for vocal steamers and hotel call times.

Mrs. Tyler. Useful. Quiet. In place.

My phone lights up on the counter.

June