All Chapters of Her last name, His claim: Chapter 61 - Chapter 69

The meeting was Enzo's idea.He told me about it the morning after the library incident, over coffee at my kitchen counter. "I'm going to see her father," he said.I looked up from my mug. "Mr. Collins.""Yes.""Does he know you're coming?""I called yesterday and he agreed to meet." He turned his own mug slowly. "He sounded unsurprised. Almost like he knew this was coming."I thought about that. "What are you going to say?""Everything." He said. "All of it. How it started, what I agreed to, why, what's been happening since. I'm not going to manage it or package it. Just the full tru

The week after Amanda was soft. There was no other word for it. Enzo stayed in Maplewood. There in the mornings sometimes, he goes to New York for a day or two, back again. A rhythm that had established itself without either of us designing it.He was different.Or maybe I was finally seeing clearly enough to see what had been different for a while. He talked more. Not about work, he'd always talked about work, but about other things. Small things. Something funny that had happened with his driver on the way from the city. A memory from years ago that surfaced .He'd spent years, maybe his whole adult life, being extremely deliberate about what he revealed and to whom. There was the professional Enzo and the private Enzo and the private one had been kept so carefully that even I, six years married to him, had sometimes felt like I was standing just outside a door that was never quite fully open.The door was open now.I was also more trusting now, but the instinct to protect myself w

The thing about carrying something heavy was that you got used to the weight.I'd been carrying the story of the hospital for five years and in that story Enzo had known. He'd known and made a choice and that choice had been the final confirmation of everything I'd believed about where I ranked in his life. That was the version I knew and held on to. This new version had me rethinking everything I thought I knew.This version had a woman named Patricia making decisions she had no right to make, and Enzo in an office somewhere not knowing.I didn't know what to do with this version.So I did what I always did with things I didn't know what to do with.I went quiet.It wasn’t even intentional, it just happened that way. Less talking at dinner, more time working and reading. Enzo noticed soon enough.We were at my apartment, Tuesday evening, finishing dinner, and I was doing the thing where I thought I was hiding, sitting across from him with my fork moving but my head somewhere else e

It’s been four days since the Wednesday dinner, and I am still not myself.It probably wouldn’t be visible to people that didn’t know me, but for someone like Enzo, it was impossible to hide from him. I could see the effort he put into not pushing for me to share, whatever it was that was making me pull away. I appreciated it, and it was also making everything harder.It was Saturday morning, Enzo was at my apartment because we'd planned to go to the farmers market. We had breakfast.I was present enough to answer questions and pour coffee and perform the basic tasks, but something on my face must have shown exactly the kind of pressure I was putting on myself, because he was looking at me like he was running out of patience. "Elena," he said."Mm.""What did I do?"I turned to look at him.He was holding the dishtowel and looking at me."Nothing," I said."Something is wrong. It's been days, and you're…" he stopped, then continued, "...you're here, but you're not here. And I've bee

Olive stayed after Maya fell asleep.Olive and I migrated to the back porch. It was cold enough to need the blankets Maya kept in the basket by the door, and we took one each and sat in the old chairs that had been on this porch since Maya moved in.Neither of us spoke for a while.Olive was good at silence, the kind that meant I'm here and I'm not going anywhere and you can take whatever time you need. She'd always been like that, even in school, the quiet one in a group of people who were always loud.It was why I was grateful to have her here."I don't know how to say it to him," I said eventually.Olive pulled her blanket higher. "Say it to me first."I looked at her."Practice," she said simply. "I'll be Enzo. Say it to me the way you need to say it to him.""Olive…""You just told me and Maya the whole story," she said. "But that was different. That was telling your friends. Telling him is a different thing entirely." She looked at me steadily. "Practice it. Get the words in you