Chapter 2 - THE VACATION THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO SAVE US
The beach trip had been Daniel’s idea.
Three weeks earlier, he came home carrying flowers.
That alone made me suspicious.
Not because Daniel never bought flowers.
Because lately he only bought them after arguments.
“We need time together,” he said.
I looked at him over the kitchen island.
“Do we?”
“Yes.”
Emma was coloring beside us.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Things have been weird.”
Weird.
That was the word he used for six months of emotional distance.
Coming home late.
Turning his phone facedown.
Taking work calls outside.
Looking at me sometimes as though I were interrupting a conversation happening inside his head.
I had asked whether there was someone else.
He laughed.
Not cruelly.
Almost convincingly.
“Maya, no.”
“Then what is happening?”
“I’m tired.”
“Of work?”
“Everything.”
That answer stayed with me.
Everything included me.
Still, when he suggested three nights at the beach, I agreed.
We had been married eight years.
Emma adored the ocean.
And part of me still believed difficult marriages could be repaired if two people were willing to stop pretending nothing was wrong.
Daniel booked a resort on the Gulf Coast.
He seemed nervous from the moment we arrived.
He checked the lobby constantly.
Left breakfast twice to take calls.
Then, on our second afternoon, Claire appeared near the pool.
I recognized her immediately.
Not personally.
From photographs.
Daniel had shown me old college pictures when we first started dating.
Claire Dawson.
Blonde.
His girlfriend before me.
The woman he once described as “the person I probably would’ve married if life had gone differently.”
At the time, I laughed.
I was twenty-six and secure enough to believe history was harmless.
Now Claire was standing forty feet from my husband at the same resort.
“What is she doing here?”
Daniel followed my eyes.
His expression barely changed.
“Who?”
I stared at him.
“Don’t.”
He sighed.
“Claire.”
“Yes, Claire.”
“I didn’t know she’d be here.”
That lie lasted less than two hours.
At the pool party later that afternoon, Claire kept avoiding me.
Daniel kept watching her.
Finally, after Emma asked why Daddy was “mad at the sand,” I told Daniel we needed to talk privately.
He followed us toward the quieter end of the beach.
Claire was nearby.
That was when he stopped pretending.
He took off his ring.
Put it in my hand.
And said the sentence I would remember longer than almost anything else from our marriage.
“I married the wrong woman.”
What I did not know was that Claire had arrived at that resort believing Daniel was already separated.
Not unhappy.
Not considering leaving.
May you like
Separated.
According to him, I had already walked away.
