Page 72 of The Husband I Left

“Who’s side are you on here?”

“Yours. Always yours. Forever and ever, amen. But I still say he’s learned the errors of his ways. Seen the light. Turned over a new leaf. I have a sixth sense about these things.”

“And I say he’s going to give up and fuck off. I give him until April and he’ll be gone.”

“I’ll take that bet. Looser buys drinks at Frank’s.” Evan holds out his hand to shake.

“Seriously, Evan?” But he looks so ridiculous, holding out his hand and waggling his eyebrows up and down, that I finally give in and shake on it.

The thing is, I have no doubt that I’ll win. I have no doubt about how this ends. He’ll get bored. He’ll get restless. Some headhunter will call, or some old board member will corner him at a restaurant, and within a month he’ll have a corner office again and this whole strange little detour filed away as a story he tells at dinner parties.

Because that’s just who Oliver is. He lived for his work. He regularly worked fifteen hour work days during the entirety of our marriage. He worked on weekends. He worked on holidays. He took calls in Santorini with the Aegean glittering behind him and his back to it. He worked in the car. He worked in bed. I used to tease him that he’d be taking a conference call on his own deathbed someday. Oliver lived for that shit. He’d never willingly give up being master of the universe. Not permanently, anyway. I’m sure of it.

Mostly sure.

It’s a Wednesday evening when everything gets weirder.

It’s dark when I get home. Spring will be here soon, but for now, everything is still cold and semi-frozen and muddy. My feet ache. My back aches. All I want is to collapse onto my couch, order something for dinner, and watch whatever garbage reality TV will require the least amount of brain power to follow.

I’m almost to my door when I suddenly hear, “hey Genny! Wait!”

It’s Oliver’s voice, but it’s not coming from Oliver’s apartment. I turn to find him coming, inexplicably, from Mr. Hill’s apartment. He’s holding a disposable container in his hands, and he shuts the door carefully behind him before walking over. I tense automatically, bracing for whatever new form of psychological warfare he’s cooked up for the evening.

“Genny, hey.” He has a soft smile on his face, and I hate the way it’s making me feel.

“Hey,” I sound breathless, and I hate that, too. I consider turning and making a dash for my apartment, and then decide I don’t want him to get the wrong idea. I don’t want to think he’s actually having any sort of effect on me.

Oliver takes a step toward me, then stops, as if remembering some invisible boundary between us. He holds out the container. “This is for you.”

I look at the container. It’s a plastic disposable leftover container. Nothing fancy.

“What’s in it?” I ask.

Oliver’s cheeks go pink. I never once, in two years of marriage, saw him blush before, and I can’t help but watch this phenomenon with fascination.

“I cooked it,” he says. “For you.”

“You cooked this?” The question comes out louder than I intended, sharp with disbelief.

He nods, and the pink color deepens. “Mr. Hill’s been teaching me. Said he was afraid I was going to burn down the building if I kept trying to learn on my own.”

“So…” I say slowly, taking the container from him. “It’s edible, then?”

Oliver grins at that, and I feel my chest tighten. “I’m pretty sure it is. Mr. Hill supervised.”

I don’t know what to do with my hands. I don’t know what to do with my face. I settle for clutching the container and try to remember how to behave like a normal person having a normal interaction.

“I know you work long hours,” Oliver says. “And I know you never liked to cook any more than I did when we were together. So I thought… maybe this would make your evening easier.”

He frowns then, just slightly, a crease appearing between his eyebrows. “It’s not what I really want to cook for you,” he says. “But Mr. Hill says I haven’t earned that yet.”

“What does that mean?” The question slips out before I can stop it.

Oliver’s smile turns wistful. “It’s a long story. Hopefully, I’ll be able to tell it to you someday. Goodnight, Genny.”

I watch him walk back to his apartment. Oliver is learning to cook. Oliver made me dinner because he knows I don’t like to cook. Oliver remembered that I don’t like to cook.

Who is this man?