The caller's voice comes through my headphones soft and slurred. She's maybe twenty-five. Drunk on Christmas Eve loneliness and cheap wine.
"He said he loved me," she whispers. "But he won't leave his wife."
I lean into the mic. My voice drops into the warm register I've spent seven years perfecting. "What makes you believe he ever will?"
She doesn't answer right away. There's shuffling. The clink of a glass. Then, in the background—faint but unmistakable—a man laughs.
My hand freezes on the soundboard.
That laugh. Slightly too loud. Slightly too long. The one that used to make me feel like I'd said something brilliant at dinner parties. The one I fell in love with at a hospital fundraiser when I was twenty-six and stupid enough to think charm and substance were the same thing.
Barrett's laugh.
The studio tilts. I blink hard and the room rights itself. My producer Diana looks up from her monitor across the glass. She mouths: *You okay?*
I nod once. My face doesn't move.
"Sweetheart," I say into the mic, and my voice doesn't shake. "If he wanted to leave her, he already would have. You're not waiting for him to choose you. You're waiting for permission to stop choosing him."
The caller sniffles. "You really think so?"
"I know so."
I disconnect the call. Cue the outro music. Smile at the camera for the livestream audience. "That's our show for tonight. Merry Christmas, New York. Be kind to yourselves."
The ON AIR light blinks off.
Diana's voice crackles through the talkback. "Hell of a closer. You sure you're good?"
"Perfect," I say. I pull off my headphones and reach for my phone.
One text from Barrett, sent ninety minutes ago: *Stuck in emergency surgery. Don't wait up. Love you.*
I stare at the screen. The letters blur and sharpen. I don't reply. I gather my coat, my bag, my Moleskine notebook. My hands are steady. They've always been steady.
Outside, snow falls in thick wet clumps that stick to the windshield. I sit in my car in the station parking lot and watch the wipers drag back and forth. Back and forth. I should start the engine. I should drive home. I should do something.
Instead I pull up our family phone plan and tap into the location history.
Barrett's phone: Mount Sinai Hospital.
I scroll back. Two hours ago: Mount Sinai Hospital. Four hours ago: a Tribeca address I don't recognize. Yesterday, same address. Three days ago. Last week. Seventeen visits in two months, each one logged with timestamps and GPS coordinates.
I open Notes. Create a new file. Title it with today's date. Copy the address. Paste it in.
Then I close my phone, start the car, and drive home through the snow.
I don't cry.
---
The apartment is dark when I get in. I hang my coat in the closet, line my boots on the mat, and walk to the kitchen. The marble countertops gleam. I wiped them down this morning before my shift. I always wipe them down.
I pour myself a glass of water and stand at the sink. Through the window, the city glitters. Somewhere out there, Barrett is laughing in someone else's apartment. Somewhere out there, a drunk girl is crying over a man who will never leave his wife.
I drink the water slowly. Set the glass in the sink. Rinse it. Dry it. Put it back in the cabinet.
Then I walk to the bedroom, sit on the edge of the bed, and open my Moleskine.
I write: *Christmas Eve. Caller's line. Background: his laugh. Text: emergency surgery. Location: Tribeca, 17 visits.*
My handwriting is small and precise. I've always had good handwriting.
I close the notebook. Slip it into my nightstand drawer. Lie down on top of the covers fully clothed.
The apartment is silent except for the hum of the heating vents. I stare at the ceiling and count the recessed lights. One, two, three, four. Barrett chose them. He said they made the room look expensive.
I don't know what time I fall asleep. I don't know if I sleep at all.
But when I open my eyes again, the sky outside is gray with morning light, and I hear the front door click open.
Footsteps in the hall. The rustle of a paper bag. The bright, performative cheer of a man who thinks he's gotten away with something.
"Hope? You awake? I brought coffee."
I sit up slowly. Smooth my hair. My face in the mirror across the room looks exactly the same as it did yesterday.
I walk out to meet my husband.
