Chapter 2 - A Memory Wearing Someone Else’s Face
Three days after overhearing that conversation, I called Ben from home.
Sadie was sitting by the window holding her stuffed rabbit.
“Daddy promised he’d read me Charlotte’s Web.”
“He’s working late.”
“He always works late.”
I called him.
A woman’s laugh sounded in the background.
“Hey,” Ben said.
“Where are you?”
“Office.”
“Sadie is waiting.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Then a young female voice said, “Ben, can you rescue me again? I broke the formula.”
Ben laughed.
“You didn’t break it. Give me a second.”
His voice changed when he returned to me.
“I’ll make it up to her this weekend.”
I looked at our daughter.
“All right.”
After putting Sadie to bed myself, I drove into Manhattan.
Northline’s executive floor was almost dark.
Ben’s office door stood slightly open.
Mia sat beside his desk wearing a pale blue sweater, her dark blond hair tied into a ponytail.
She was laughing.
“You seriously think I’m that hopeless?”
“No.”
Ben smiled.
“You’re just... different.”
“Different good or different annoying?”
“Good.”
He hesitated.
“You remind me of someone.”
“Who?”
“My wife.”
Mia blinked.
“Laura?”
“When she was eighteen.”
Something in my chest tightened.
Mia smiled.
“She must have been fun.”
“She was.”
Was.
Ben looked toward the windows.
“She used to drag me out in snowstorms because she wanted hot chocolate from this diner forty minutes away. Once she convinced me to sneak onto the football field at midnight just to watch a meteor shower.”
“That sounds romantic.”
“It was.”
“And now?”
He smiled faintly.
“Now she schedules fun two weeks in advance.”
Mia laughed.
Ben did too.
Then she touched his forearm.
He immediately stepped back.
“Mia.”
Her smile vanished.
“Sorry.”
“I’m married.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
I left before either of them saw me.
That distinction mattered.
My husband had not kissed her.
He had not slept with her.
He had done something harder to explain.
He had begun giving another woman the emotional attention he no longer bothered giving his wife.
The following night, I asked him to transfer Mia.
To his credit, he did.
Three weeks later, I saw Mia outside a cardiology clinic in Manhattan with an older woman.
Her mother.
I was passing them when I heard the woman say, “A man doesn’t pull strings for specialists unless he cares.”
“Mom.”
“He’s handsome, successful, and clearly miserable at home. Stranger things have happened.”
Then Mia saw me.
Her face went white.
“Laura.”
Her mother followed her gaze.
Mia swallowed.
“Mom, this is Ben’s wife.”
I stopped.
Apparently Ben had personally arranged a consultation for Mia’s mother.
There was nothing immoral about helping a sick woman.
So I asked only one question.
“Did my husband come here with you?”
Mia looked down.
“Twice.”
That evening I asked Ben where he had been on those dates.
Both times, he had told me he was meeting investors.
When I confronted him, he did not deny it.
“I knew you’d misunderstand.”
“I asked you to create distance.”
“Her mother needed help.”
“Then why lie?”
He looked exhausted.
“Because I didn’t want another argument.”
“No, Ben. You lied because doing what you wanted was easier than respecting the boundary you promised me.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Mia has had a hard life.”
“So did I.”
“That’s what I mean.”
He looked at me.
“She reminds me of you.”
I laughed once.
It sounded terrible.
“The old me.”
He said nothing.
“The version without two children. Without a company. Without school forms on the kitchen counter.”
“Laura—”
“The version who had enough time to drive forty minutes for hot chocolate at midnight.”
His eyes reddened.
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither is resenting the woman I became while building the life you said you wanted.”
He came around the coffee table.
“I don't resent you.”
“Then what do you feel?”
May you like
He could not answer.
So three nights later, when he praised Mia at dinner for the third time, I finally stopped waiting for one.
