Page 70 of October
A long, bitter silence stretched between us before I asked, "Did you... complain about me to her?"
His eyes snapped back to mine. "Never. I promise you—I never talked about you. Not once. Not even in passing. Every time she brought you up—'Isn't your wife waiting?'—or tried to open that door, I shut it down. I didn't vent about you. I didn't use her as some kind of emotional crutch or an escape hatch from our marriage."
He dragged a hand through his hair, the frustration in his voice turning inward. "I didn't confide in her. I didn't sit there telling her my life, building some secret version of happiness with her. It wasn't emotional—it was selfish. Ego. Weakness. And none of those excuses matter because I still made the choices I made."
I swallowed. "But you wouldn't stop her if she said something nasty about me."
His jaw tightened. "I'd change the subject. I hate confrontations, you know that, and she didn't start like that, not really. She got worse toward the end. But I should've shut that down properly. I didn't, and that's on me. I am sorry."
"I don't get it, Thomas," I whispered. "I thought I gave you love. Attention. I thought I gave you enough."
"You did," he said softly, like it hurt to say it. "You absolutely did. None of this is a reflection of you. It's me. My mess. My damage. My mistakes. And I'm going to be the one fighting for us, whether you believe me now or not. Even if you sign the damn papers—I'll still be here, showing you, every day, what I should've done before."
"When did you put the plaque under our tree?"
He looked almostshy, rubbing the back of his neck like a teenager caught doing something embarrassing. "You... saw that?"
"Yeah," I nodded slowly. "When?"
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "After Lola was born."
I blinked, surprised. "Really?"
He nodded, looking down for a moment like he was trying to untangle the memory. "I was with you at the hospital, remember? But my head... I wasn't fully there. I was already thinking about work, about how I needed to start bringing in more now that Lola was here. And of course—" he huffed, rolling his eyes at himself, "—Dad wouldn't stop texting me, telling me to 'be a man' and get back to work. Said this wasn't exactly myfirstkid, so I should stop acting like it was a big deal."
I rolled my eyes too, matching his frustration. That sounded exactly like James.
He gave a dry laugh. "You were pissed at me for checking my phone while I was supposed to be with you, and you were right. You werecompletelyright. But... I just felt trapped in it. Like I was failing at everything. Failing you, failing work, failing at being the kind of man I kept thinking I was supposed to be."
I stayed silent, watching him. Letting him keep going.
"So once I made sure you and the baby were okay, I went back to the office. Same old garbage. Dad breathing down my neck...." His jaw tightened. "And then—Mom called. Said she was on her way to the hospital with the kids to meet their new sister."
He looked at me again, more tender now. "I left work. Didn't even tell anyone. Just left. And when I got there... you were asleep." He swallowed. "I don't know how to explain it. But it was like standing in the middle ofheaven. I sat down next to you, rested my head on your shoulder like I used to when we were younger, and you—" he smiled faintly "—you smelled like ... October. As usual, you smelledamazing."
I tried to look unaffected, but that part cut through me.
He exhaled slowly, shaking his head, like the words were tangled inside him. "I don't know... standing there, I kept thinking of that Baudelaire's poem—Le Parfum.
'Parfum, musique et couleur se répondent.'
'Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants, doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies.'
(Scent, music, and color correspond. There are perfumes fresh like children's flesh, sweet like the sound of oboes, green like the prairies.)
That's what it felt like, standing there. Everything else, noise, seasons, even memory itself, was slipping away. But you... your scent stayed. Like you were sewn into the world itself."
I looked down at my hands.
"A few days later, I made arrangements. Talked to a friend. Got the plaque made. I wanted it there for her first birthday, so we could bring the kids and have a little moment, you know?"
I didn't even know how to feel anymore. The old me—the me from before—would've been over the moon about this, laughing, squealing, breathless that he was finally talking about his feelings, finally being sweet.
But is it really sweet if he never mentioned it before? If he never thought Ideservedto hear it back then? Because the way I remember that day is nothing like this pretty picture he's painting. I was tired, worn down from carrying too much on my own, and yes, he was there, but notwithme. He kept glancing at his phone, checking his watch like he had somewhere betterto be. It's funny how two people can sit in the same moment and live entirely different versions of it.
I looked away sacred of softening, the ache rising in my throat, and changed the subject before I unraveled. "So... do you have a job yet?"
His mouth twitched into a smile. "I do, actually."
