Chapter 3

 The Letter He Won’t Read  

Sophia sat at the kitchen table. The house was very quiet. The clock on the wall said 3:14 AM. She had a blank page in front of her and held a pen tightly.  

Adrian was asleep on the floor outside the guest room door. She had shut the door on him earlier. She heard him slide down the wall and fall asleep.  

She put the pen on the paper.  

Dear Adrian,  

She stopped and stared at the words until they looked blurry. Then she wrote again.  

Dear Adrian. I married you because my father said our families would be okay if I did.  

She scribbled it out hard, pressing the pen into the paper.  

Dear Adrian. I loved you. I really did.  

She crossed that out too. She put the pen down and pressed her hands over her eyes. Her shoulders dropped.  

The floor made a small sound down the hall. He was still there.  

Sophia picked up the pen again.  

I don’t know when I stopped loving you. But I know when I saw it. Last Christmas. You gave me a check. You gave your assistant a necklace. I saw the box. I thought it was for me. It wasn’t.  

Her hand held the pen tighter. She kept writing.  

I bought you 47 gifts in five years. You bought me seven. I counted. I ate 212 dinners alone. I spent 19 birthdays waiting for you to come home. You never came home before midnight.  

Her breathing got faster. She moved in her chair, crossing and uncrossing her legs.  

I lost our baby while you were in Singapore. Did you know that? No. Because you never asked how I was. Not once. Not in five years.  

She looked at the words. She didn’t mean to write that. Her other hand touched her stomach for a second, then dropped.  

She kept going anyway.  

I’m not writing this to make you feel bad. I’m writing this so I remember why I’m leaving. Because sometimes I look at you and I still see the man who held my hand at our wedding and said, “I’ll try.”  

You didn’t try, Adrian.  

You just forgot.  

She signed it at the bottom. Sophia.  

She folded the paper once, then again, and put it in her robe pocket. She stood up and her chair scraped the floor. She walked down the hall. Her bare feet were quiet on the cold floor. She opened the guest room door.  

Adrian was slumped against the wall, his head down, tie still loose. His jacket was crumpled next to him. He didn’t move.  

Sophia kneeled in front of him slowly. Her robe spread on the floor. She reached out, her fingers close to his face, then lightly touched his cheek.  

His eyes opened. He blinked, confused, then saw her. “Sophia?”  

She pulled her hand back fast and stood up. “Go to bed, Adrian.”  

He pushed himself up against the wall, wincing as he straightened his back. He rubbed his neck. “I want to talk. Please.”  

“Go to bed,” she said again, her voice quiet but firm. She crossed her arms and stepped back toward the door.  

“I saw your ring on the plate downstairs.” He stood up all the way now. He was taller than her but stayed back. His eyes looked at her face, then at her bare finger. “Why did you take it off?”  

She looked down at her hand and turned it slowly. “Because it’s heavy. And I’m tired of carrying things by myself.”  

Adrian moved closer. He reached out but stopped. “I saw the food in the trash. The cake. The ring just sitting there. It hit me, Soph. Harder than I thought.”  

She looked at him, her jaw tight. “You saw it after you came home. Not before. Not when it mattered.”  

He ran a hand through his messy hair. His shoulders dropped. “I know. The merger calls went long. Tokyo time. I kept thinking I’d finish and get back. Then it was midnight.”  

“Midnight.” Sophia breathed out, turning away for a second, then back. “I waited in that dress you bought me. The one you’ve never seen. I lit the candle. I set the table for two. And I got two words. Go to sleep.”  

Adrian leaned against the doorframe, not taking his eyes off her. “I hate that I did that to you. To us. Let me fix it. Come back to our room. We can talk now.”  

“Now?” She shook her head. Her fingers touched the letter in her pocket. “You’ve been asleep on the floor for hours. I’ve been in the kitchen writing things I should have said years ago.”  

His eyebrows came together. He reached for her hand again. This time his fingers touched hers before she pulled away. “What things? Talk to me. Yell if you need to. Just don’t shut me out.”  

Sophia’s voice got quieter. “I lost our baby while you were in Singapore. You never even asked why I was in bed for days after you got back. You just said you had another flight soon.”  

Adrian froze. His face went pale. He stepped forward a little, his hand out. “Sophia… I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?”  

“Because you weren’t here to tell.” She held up her bare hand between them. “You’re never here. I counted the dinners. The birthdays. The gifts I bought that stayed unopened. I’m done counting.”  

He swallowed hard. His eyes looked shiny as he looked at her. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. I thought giving you everything meant I was doing right. I was wrong.”  

She stepped back into the guest room, her hand on the door. “Sorry doesn’t fill the empty chair, Adrian. Or the empty bed.”  

“Stay,” he said fast, his voice breaking. He moved closer but didn’t walk in. “Don’t sleep in here again. We can fix this. Starting now.”  

Sophia looked at him for a long moment, her fingers holding the door. “Goodnight, Adrian.”  

She closed the door and locked it with a soft click. She leaned back against it, took the letter from her pocket, unfolded it, and read the line about the baby again. Her eyes stung. She blinked hard and folded it away.  

She would give it to him in the morning.  

Or she wouldn’t.  

Sophia lay down on the bed and stared at the white ceiling. Empty. Just like every other night.  

From the other side of the wall came three soft knocks. A pause. Then three more. The pattern happened again. He was still there, trying to reach her through the wall.