All Chapters of The wife I forgot to love: Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

It was a Thursday. She had chosen Thursday deliberately. Eleanor Thursday meant he would have already made the call at six, already had the conversation that settled something in him, already be slightly softer at the edges than he was on other evenings. Not weak. Just less armoured. The difference between a man fully braced and a man who had just spoken to someone he loved and was still carrying the warmth of it. She had been patient for five weeks. Patient was what the plan required and she had given it everything the plan required and tonight she was going to give it one thing more. The floor emptied by six-forty. She knew the pattern precisely. She had been recording it in her head since the first week. Who left first, who stayed late, which nights he stayed and which nights he didn’t, the particular rhythm of a floor that ran on human habit as much as anything else. Tonight he was still in his office at seven. She knocked once. Came in. He looked up from the desk. Jacket o

She was in the garden when he arrived. Not waiting for him. Just there. On her knees in the far corner by the raised beds with her gloves on and a small trowel and the particular focus of a woman who did not stop doing a thing simply because someone had arrived. He let himself through the side gate the way he always did and she looked up and said the kettle is on and went back to what she was doing. He sat on the wooden bench. The garden was doing what it did at this time of year. Holding on. The last of the late flowers still there if you looked. The raised beds full of something Eleanor had planted in September that would not show properly until spring. She had told him what it was and he had forgotten and had not asked again because asking again meant admitting he had not been paying attention the first time and he was trying to be a person who paid attention now. She came and sat beside him eventually. Pulled her gloves off. Looked at the beds the way she always looked at them.

She told herself it was just another morning. The same routine. Up at six-fifteen. Coffee. The particular quiet of an apartment before the city outside decided what kind of day it was going to be. She dressed the way she always dressed. Checked her bag. Left at seven-forty. Told herself it was just another morning. It was not just another morning. Today she was going to do the last thing. The one piece that was still outstanding despite what she had told Camila. She had said it was done because most of it was done and because she had needed the visit to end and because saying there is one more thing would have required explaining what the one more thing was and she had not been ready to explain it in that room with those phones and that glass between them. The last piece was a legal file. Victor’s files. The ones from the case three years ago that connected Graves Industries to the financial firm that was now receiving the documents she had photographed. The connection that made t

Marcus called at seven forty-one. Street noise behind him again. Damian had stopped asking about it. The outside was where Marcus made calls now and that told him everything he needed to know about how seriously Marcus was taking this. “I have the firm name,” Marcus said. Damian put down the file he was holding. Sat back. “Tell me.” Marcus told him. The name landed the way certain names landed. Not loudly. Just with a particular weight that settled in the chest before the mind had finished processing it. Damian sat with it for a moment. Said nothing. “Damian.” “I heard you.” “You recognise it.” Not a question. “Yes.” Marcus was quiet on the other end. The sound of a bus somewhere behind him. A door opening and closing. The ordinary city going about its evening with no interest in what was happening on this particular pavement. “Three years ago,” Damian said. “There was a dispute. Small. It was settled quietly and I thought it was finished.” “It wasn’t finished,” Mar

She did not sleep. Not properly. The kind of night that is made up of small returns to consciousness rather than rest. The apartment was quiet in the way it always was, but the quiet had changed shape. It was no longer neutral. It was holding something now. She lay on her back for a long time with her eyes open, watching the faint reflection of the city move across the ceiling as cars passed below. At some point she turned onto her side. At another she sat up. At another she checked the time without needing to know it. Four days. That was the number that had lodged itself somewhere behind her ribs. Not spoken aloud. Not written. Just there, complete. She got up once and made tea she did not drink. Sat with it cooling in her hands. Put it down untouched. Walked to the window. Looked out without focusing on anything. Came back to bed. Each time she tried to return to the work, her mind did not follow cleanly anymore. It used to. That was the part she could not ignore. It used