Chapter 12 - I Had Forced Vanessa Back Into The House She Tried To Avoid
The contractors returned Monday.
I told them not to close the wall.
Not forever.
For now.
The project manager asked what the room would become.
I said:
“I don't know.”
He hated that.
I was starting to like it.
That afternoon Vanessa and I walked through the mansion.
Not ceremonially.
We needed to decide where she would sleep.
She had moved into the guest room after the wall came down.
Not out of the house.
Not back into our bedroom.
We reached the old garage apartment.
My office.
Vanessa stopped in the doorway.
“You hate this room.”
I looked around.
Low ceiling.
Built-in shelves.
Desk facing the garden.
“I complain.”
“You complain constantly.”
“Fair.”
She walked to the window.
“My bed was there.”
I stopped.
“Where?”
She pointed at my desk.
“Right there.”
I looked at it.
For eight years, I had made quarterly calls from the exact place my wife slept as a teenager.
I had never known.
“What was the room like?”
“Smaller.”
“How?”
“Your father removed one wall.”
“Why?”
“Storage.”
Of course.
Vanessa touched the old windowsill.
“My mother used to wake me at five because her shift started at six.”
“You went to school from here.”
“Yes.”
“Private school.”
“Scholarship.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
The question wasn't cruel.
Fair.
I knew the biography.
Not the logistics.
She continued:
“I took two buses.”
“You never told me.”
“No.”
I almost asked why.
Stopped myself.
We knew the answer already.
I asked something else.
“When we moved here, what did you want me to hear?”
Vanessa looked at me.
“I said I didn't want this house.”
“Yes.”
“What did you hear?”
I thought back.
“My father had just died.”
“Yes.”
“My mother wanted to sell.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were resisting because the place was old and too formal.”
“You called me dramatic.”
I closed my eyes.
“I did.”
“You said Lily deserved to grow up somewhere with roots.”
That sounded exactly like me.
Vanessa laughed softly.
“I had roots here.”
I stared.
“You just didn't know whose.”
No speech needed after.
I walked to the desk.
“Why did you agree?”
“Because you were grieving.”
“So?”
“So I made your grief more important than my fear.”
She looked annoyed at herself for saying it.
I said:
“And then resented me.”
“Yes.”
“Did I know enough to make a different decision?”
“No.”
“Could you have told me?”
“Yes.”
Both facts.
We stood inside them.
Then Vanessa said:
“I also wanted to see if I could live here differently.”
“What does that mean?”
“My mother entered through service doors.”
She looked toward the main house.
“I wanted to use the front.”
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“For eight years.”
“Yes.”
“Did it help?”
Vanessa took a long time.
“Sometimes.”
Then:
“Other times I felt like I had stolen the whole house instead of one bracelet.”
I looked at her.
“That isn't how I see you.”
“I know.”
“Does that matter?”
“Yes.”
“Enough?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
Fair.
Then I asked the question I had been avoiding.
“Did you marry me because I was a Bennett?”
Her face hardened.
“No.”
“Did being a Bennett affect whether you married me?”
“Yes.”
There it was.
“How?”
“I almost left.”
“Only almost?”
She looked at me.
“And sometimes staying felt like winning.”
That hurt.
Not because she had used me.
Because she had occasionally used the marriage to argue with a dead year.
I nodded.
She watched me.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I gave her a look.
She almost smiled.
Then:
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“I don't know if I want to sleep in our room again.”
I looked toward the main house.
The broken wall waited upstairs.
“I don't know if I want you to yet.”
May you like
That hurt both of us.
It was also the first sentence in days neither tried to soften.
