All Chapters of The wife I forgot to love: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

The letter arrived on a Thursday morning.She had not been expecting anything. She had been at the kitchen table with her second coffee of the day and the script she was preparing for next week and the particular focused quiet of a morning that was going well when she heard the post arrive through the slot in the door.She did not get up immediately.She finished the paragraph she was reading and made a note in the margin and then got up and went to the door. There were three things on the mat. A bill. A card from her dentist. And an envelope.The envelope was handwritten.She picked it up. She looked at the handwriting. She knew it immediately the way you knew handwriting that had been in your life for years. Not from letters. From notes left on kitchen counters. From lists made and left behind. From a handwriting she had known so well that she could have reproduced it from memory.She stood in the hallway with the envelope in her hand.She put the bill and the dentist card on the co

The documentary premiered on a Thursday evening in October.Helena wore something she had chosen herself three weeks earlier. A dark green dress she had bought for a different occasion that had not happened and had kept because it was the right dress even if it had not yet found its right occasion. She decided this was the occasion.Sione met her outside the venue.He looked at her and she looked at him and neither of them said anything for a moment. Then he said are you ready. She said yes. He said I know. She said then why did you ask. He said because I wanted to hear you say it. She said yes. He said good. He held the door.The venue was smaller than the Markov premiere. Intentionally. Sione had been specific about the size. He had said the film breathes better in a smaller room. He had been right about most things concerning this film and she had trusted his judgment on the room.She sat in the second row.Cassidy was two seats to her left. Marcus beside Cassidy. Jordan Park was i

She wrote for three hours.She did not plan to write for three hours. She sat down at the kitchen table after the premiere with the notebook open and she started writing and when she looked up the clock on the wall said two fifteen in the morning and the tea she had made was cold and she had filled four pages.She read what she had written.It was not the same as what she had written on the Monday morning after Adrian. That had been an answer to a question. This was different. This was everything she knew about herself now that she had not known two years ago. All of it laid out in the particular honest language she had been developing for months through the documentary sessions and the notebook and the mornings of sitting still and letting the stillness show her what was there.She knew who she was.She had not always known. She had spent seven years being a version of herself that was shaped around another person and the shaping had not been dishonest. She had not performed a self s

The address in the message was not Eleanor's address.Helena noticed this four minutes into the drive. She had not checked before she left. She had grabbed her bag and her keys and gone because the message had said something has happened and because it had come from Eleanor's number and she had not thought to verify the address against Eleanor's street before she was already in the car.She checked it at a red light.Eleanor lived on Pemberton Road. She had been to Pemberton Road many times during the marriage and once after it when she had called Eleanor just to hear her voice and Eleanor had said come for tea and she had gone. She knew Pemberton Road.The address in the message was Calder Street.She sat at the red light and looked at the two addresses on her phone screen.She told herself there was a reason. Eleanor might be visiting someone. Eleanor might be at a doctor or a friend or somewhere else entirely and might have sent the message from wherever she was. The message had sa

The room was a sitting room in a rented house.Helena understood it was a rental the moment she walked in. No personal objects. No photographs on the walls. Books on the shelf that had the quality of books that came with the furniture. A sofa and two chairs and a small table and a window that looked at the back of the house opposite. Nothing that belonged to anyone.Camila stood near the window.Helena stood near the door.She had noted the door when she came in. It had not been locked. She had noted the window. She had noted the stairs and the front door beyond them. She had noted the bag on the chair near the far wall. Packed. Not lightly. Camila was leaving somewhere after this.Helena kept her bag on her shoulder.Camila said thank you for coming. She said I know this is not the version of this conversation you would have chosen.Helena said no. She said it is not.She said it clearly. Not with anger. Not with fear. She was not angry and she was not afraid and she was not going to