after that was over, we would talk, but instead, he refuses to even look at me.”
“Hmm. That does sound like a man, doesn’t it? They like to pace around like caged animals when they have something on their mind that they don’t want to deal with.”
“Okay, so … what do I do?” I ask, leaning forward, a little desperate. “You’ve been married for nearly forty years. Any advice?”
“Space,” she says immediately. “Give the man a bit of space. Especially that man. He’s more complicated than most.”
“Space,” I repeat. “Okay, that sounds simple enough. I can do that.”
My mom nods. “Of course you can. Though, if I might suggest …”
“By all means …”
“Put a time limit on how much space you give him. You never know when a little space can turn into a decade. The damage is harder to undo then.”
“But not impossible to undo the damage,” I say softly, knowing we’re no longer talking about Colin and me. “Right?”
She gives me a little smile. “No, dear. Not impossible.”
Chapter 20
Saturday, September 12
I take Mom’s advice and give Colin some space.
I also take her advice and put a time limit on it. One week. One week is how long I give Colin to come out of his sulk on his own.
For the past seven days, he’s done an impressive job of pretending I don’t exist. He skipped Sunday dinner after my mom and I went to church under the guise of having to work—I think we both know who he was “working” with. And since then, every time I’ve been in the apartment, he finds a reason not to be.
I’ve been understanding; in fact, I’ve even tried to help him out. I’ve made a point of longer days at my rented office, happy hours with girlfriends I’ve wanted to reconnect with, and I’ve done more shopping in the past week than in the past year.
But a full week after Rebecca rang our doorbell, he’s still pretending I don’t exist, and … time’s up. I take control of the situation.
The Saturday morning following church with my mom, I find Colin on the couch in the living room reading a William McKinley biography all casual-like, as though he’s not a man with a wife and a fiancée.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
He looks up, his gaze going slightly wary as he carefully places a bookmark between the pages and sets the book on the coffee table before gesturing for me to sit in the chair across from him.
“So,” I say, sitting and crossing my legs. “Do you want to go through the whole song and dance of me explaining what I want to talk about, or do you want to just skip that part and dive in?”
“She’s my partner at the firm,” he says, apparently going with option number two. “Her name is Rebecca Hale, and we’ve been working together for four years.”
“And sleeping together for how much of that time?” Whoops. That didn’t come out quite how I meant it to, but I don’t backtrack. I really want to know the answer.
“We became, ah, involved, about a year and a half ago.”
Nope, I lied. I didn’t want to know.
“Involved,” I repeat. “That’s a nice euphemism.”
“Don’t,” Colin says a little sharply. “Don’t pretend that you and I have a real marriage and that we haven’t had an agreement since the very beginning.”
“I wasn’t!” I say. “I know we never promised fidelity in this whole arrangement. But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t have just told me that you’re engaged. Isn’t that sort of a crucial detail in your life? In our life, since—like it or not—you’re stuck with me in a big way for two more months.”
He sighs and drops his head forward, and in spite of myself, I feel almost bad for him, especially when he lifts his head and looks a little … lost.
“Honestly? I didn’t know for certain that I was engaged.”
“That’s …” Huh? I search for words. “That’s definitely not what I expected you to say.”
“I know. None of this is expected.” He crisscrosses his fingers and looks at the floor.
When he lifts his head, he looks calmer. Slightly.
“Rebecca’s known about the arrangement between you and me from the beginning. After we became … close, I told her the full story. About my green card, about your inheritance, everything. I wanted—needed—her to understand why she and I needed to be discreet. She was fine with it. Things were fine. Until a couple of months ago.”
“What changed?” My reigning theory is