I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“If you pay me,” she said, “I don’t have a job. I don’t have leverage. I don’t have independence.”
“You have security.”
“I have you.”
“Yes.” The word was immediate. Certain.
And something about that answer made her step back.
“I don’t want to belong to someone,” she said.
“You are my wife.” The phrase lands wrong.
“Only on paper,” she said.
“And in practice.”
She shook her head. “That’s not the same thing.”
I was losing the thread. I could feel it.
“I am attempting to protect you,” I said evenly.
“I didn’t ask you to eliminate my life.”
“I am eliminating exploitation.”
“You’re eliminating my choice.”
The word sliced cleaner than I expected. Choice. We stared at each other. “You think I would use that against you?”
“I think you don’t even see it,” she said.
“I can take away all your problems,” I said, softer now. “You do not need to struggle anymore.”
She looked at me like that’s the most heartbreaking sentence I could have offered. “My struggle is not something you get to erase without asking.”
And for the first time since this conversation began, I realize I may have approached this entirely wrong. I could move money like chess pieces. I could dismantle corporations. I could bury disgusting little men like Tripp Whitaker without raising my voice.
But this required something else. And I wasn’t yet certain I knew how to do it.
We cleared the dishes in silence.
She handed me a plate without looking at me, and I took it without comment. The quiet between us felt heavier than it should have after what was meant to be protection.
Her phone dinged on the counter.
She glanced at it.
“Mel is checking to see if I will be at practice tonight,” she says.
I dried my hands slowly. “Can we talk . . . please?” I offer.
She hesitated. It was small, but I noticed.
“I have to go.”
