“I've already had the photo studio reschedule the session. Day after tomorrow, afternoon. And I swear, this time I won't bail on you.”
My son's hands paused over the model.
He glanced at Harry, then tipped his head up, hesitant.
And still, against everything, a flicker of hope rose in his eyes and turned toward me.
Meeting those clear, wide eyes, something in me went soft.
“All right.”
Call it granting the boy one last wish.
The words were barely out before his whole face lit up.
He scooped up his beloved model and went padding off in his slippers, racing into his room.
The living room fell quiet again.
I bent back over the clothes, sorting them, while Harry came to my side and started to speak, hesitating：
“About him calling me 'Mr. James' today……”
My fingers stilled. I lifted my eyes to him.
He set the cake aside, took my hand, and pressed it against his chest, against the smooth front of his suit.
Under my palm, his heartbeat ran a little fast.
“Deborah, I know you've been angry with me lately. Angry that I've looked after Vivien and her boy too much and left you and our son out in the cold.”
His eyes held a seriousness, a helplessness, I'd never seen in them.
“But what I feel for her is only what I owe her brother. She's raising a child alone, and in our circles that's no easy thing. I can't just abandon them.”
“Give me a little more time. Once I've got them properly settled, I'll never let you or our son suffer another moment of it.”
I stared at that handsome, sharply cut face, and for a second I drifted.
I could barely remember the last time he'd looked at me like this, with so much tenderness, so much focus.
Was it at that wedding of the century the whole city talked about, when he took my hand and spoke his vows?
Or in the delivery room, when our son was born and he kissed my forehead with shaking lips?
Whatever those scalding promises had been, they'd long since gone cold in all that waiting.
Looking at the man in front of me, I suddenly wanted to lay it all bare.
“Harry, the truth is……”
“Oh, right,”
he cut in, an edge of urgency crossing his handsome face.
“That globally limited-edition Bugatti scale model you bought our son, the original factory one. Where is it? In the display case?”
“Vivien says Howie's been begging to play with it lately. Let me take it over to calm him down. I'll bring it back in a few days.”
He didn't wait for an answer. He just turned and walked straight to the study.
Less than a minute later he came out with the model my son treasured above everything, grabbing his car keys in the same motion and pulling the front door open in a rush.
“Slam!”
The heavy security door closed completely in front of me.
I stood there staring at the empty entryway for a long time before I finally said the rest of it, softly, to no one：
“The truth is, our son and I don't want you anymore.”
Three days left before we were gone for good.
At midnight I stopped working, rubbed my aching temples, and lay down on the empty bed.
My phone screen lit up all at once. A message from Harry.
“Howie loves the sports-car model. I stayed up all night putting it together with him. Vivien wanted me to pass along her thanks.”
Ha. The middle of the night, and my husband was up keeping another woman's child company, then relaying her thanks to me on top of it.
I gave a small, self-mocking tug at the corner of my mouth. Even anger felt like a waste now.
Some endings, after all, are settled long before they arrive.
Expressionless, I typed out my reply：
“No need to thank me. It wasn't a gift from me.”
“That Bugatti model was our son's seventh birthday present. He waited three whole months for you. He wanted you to build it with him.”
Once it was sent, I powered off the phone, closed my eyes, and let myself sink into sleep.
