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I clean my brushes. Cap the paints. Wash the palette in the deep sink he installed. The motions are steady and familiar and I try not to think about how every single thing in this room is something he chose for me.

I think about it anyway.

Downstairs, I make pasta I don’t really want. I check my phone while it boils. While I drain it. While I scrape it into a container and put it in the fridge next to last night’s plate.

Nothing.

By the time I get into bed, the house feels too big again. I wash my face. Pull on one of his shirts because apparently that’s who I am now. Get under the covers on my side.

The quiet is different tonight.

It doesn’t feel like he’s busy.

It feels like he’s choosing this.

I lie there in the dark thinking about the painting upstairs and the man at the end of the aisle and the way my hand knew what I’m still scared to say out loud.

He’s pulling away. I can feel it. Not in anything I can point to or prove—just in the spaces where warmth used to be. In the texts that say nothing. In the silence where goodnight should go.

And I don’t know how to stop it.

I don’t know how to hold onto someone who’s decided to handle everything alone.

I turn over. Press my face into his pillow. Breathe him in.

And I hate that this is the closest I’ve been to my husband in two days.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

EVERETT

Three minutes late. Claudia Preston is making us wait. That's intentional.

Christian is beside me. Tie knotted tight. Briefcase in hand. Court face on—the one that means he already knows how bad this is going to get.

He hasn't said much since we stepped off the elevator.

He doesn't need to.

The tremor in my hands is still there. It’s faint and manageable, but still there.

I keep my fingers flat against my thighs as Genevieve looks up from where she's seated off to the side. Not at the table. Near the windows. Observing.

Genevieve.

Ms. Preston sits at the head of the table. The other two trustees flanking her. Someone definitely rehearsed this seating arrangement.

Christian takes the chair to my left.

I take the one directly across from Preston.

"Mr. Kauffman," Preston says. "Thank you for coming on short notice."

"You didn't give me the impression it was optional."

Her expression doesn't shift. "It wasn't."

She opens the folder in front of her. Takes her time about it.