Page 135 of Wait for Him

A tiny fox darts across the trail and disappears into the brush.

"Smart," I mutter. "Run while you still can."

The silence out here isn't what I expected. I thought I'd feel lonely. Instead, I mostly feel quiet.

Back home, every minute of my life belonged to somebody else. A client, my team, the board, Michael, whoever had the latest emergency. There was always something that needed fixing.

Out here, the biggest decision I've made all day is whether to stop for lunch now or wait until the next overlook, and I like that more than I expected to.

Somewhere along the way, I started measuring my worth by how needed I was. If nobody needed anything from me, I didn't know what to do with myself.

That's been a fun little discovery.

I adjust my backpack and start walking again before my legs decide to stiffen up.

Three more miles.

I can do three more miles.

Chapter Twelve

Jackson

February

It's Friday, February 29.

My birthday.

The one day, every four years, that I get to celebrate on the actual day I was born. The other three years I'm a man with an asterisk, splitting the difference between the last day of February and the first of March, and Rose used to text me on both.

Covering my bases, she'd say.

I've been working because it's a day like any other. Same as every year. Everyone's gone home now. I sent Emily packing about an hour ago over her objections, and I've spent most of the time since standing at the window watching the city light itself up without me.

It's been seven months and seventeen days since Rose left.

I've checked my phone all day.

Not compulsively.

Just at the top of every hour, the bottom of it and most of the minutes in between.

She has never once let my birthday pass without a message. Not when we were barely speaking. Not when I was married. Not the year she was in trial for six straight weeks and claimed she hadn't slept enough to remember her own address. Ever.

Some quiet, accountant part of my brain has already done the books on this. If midnight comes and that message doesn't, the account is closed. I'll have my answer, and it'll be the one I've spent seven months pretending I don't already have.

Dad's trial wrapped last week. It's been a public spectacle from the first filing, given the positions he held and the political circles he moved in, every network running the same footage of him climbing courthouse steps while reporters shouted questions he never answered.

The one mercy in all that coverage is what it shook loose.

Women started coming forward.

Harassment. Assault. Some with stories that went back decades, some with evidence Wesley clearly never imagined had survived him. By the time the case reached the jury, Rose wasn't one terrible secret buried in his past anymore. She was one name in a line of women he'd spent years assuming would stay quiet.

The verdict came back guilty last week. Sentencing is next month.

I sat in that courtroom every single day and never once looked at him.