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“I’m not,” I repeated, sounding more like a stubborn toddler than a grown man. “This is my home too.”

“I know.”

“I mean it, Els. I’m not moving out because everyone thinks I should. I’m not walking away from my children. I’m not giving up on us.”

“There isn’t an us anymore.”

The words sliced through me harshly. I almost hated her then. For one hot, horrible second, I hated her for being able to say it. For standing there in the kitchen we had chosen together, beside the babies we had made together, and saying there was no us like she had any right to make that decision alone.

Then the truth rose behind it. I had made the decision. Over and over. In hotel rooms. In messages. In the lies. In the quiet spaces where Elsie trusted me and I used that trust as cover. I turned away before she could see whatever was happening on my face.

“I’m still not going,” I said.

“Okay.”

Just that. Okay. No fight. No plea. No crack in her voice.

I hated my stubbornness and wish that I would just go to my parents. But I couldn’t bear their judgment right now. So, I went to what is now ‘my’ room.

It smelled faintly of dust and clean linen, and the lavender sachets mum had once insisted all proper guest rooms needed, as if people could not be trusted to sleep without potpourri judging them from a drawer.

I shut the door and stood in the middle of the room. For a while, I did nothing.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. My mother again. I ignored it. Then Jack. Ignored. Olivia. Ignored. Sophie. I looked at her name for several seconds before the screen went dark. Everyone knew. My whole family knew. The thought crawled under my skin.

They knew about it all. What a piece of shit I am, even when my kids were struggling. God. The NICU. I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed my palms into my eyes until bright spots burst behind them. That was the detail that had changed the room at the gathering. I had watched it happen. I had watched my father’s face close down. Had watched Jack step back from me like I had become contagious. Had watched Emma move slightly toward Elsie. Had watched mum try to contain the moment as if public exposure was the emergency, not the fact I had left my wife beside incubators and sought out another woman.

I remembered that night. I wished I didn’t. The promises that were made. Then the follow up only the day after. My children still in the hospital.

Lexi’s apartment had smelled like vanilla candles and expensive shampoo. She had put her hand on my chest and told me I looked tired in a voice that made tired sound attractive instead of pathetic.

I had told myself I was only staying for an hour. Then I had told myself Elsie was asleep at the hospital anyway. Then I had told myself that I deserved one thing that felt simple. Then I had stopped telling myself anything because the lies had become easier once they stacked high enough.

I bent forward, elbows on knees, and breathed through the nausea. I wanted to blame the stress. The pay cut. The twins. Elsie’s exhaustion. The lack of sex. The way my life had gone from late dinners and weekend trips to nappies and whispered arguments over whose turn it was to sterilise bottles.

I wanted a reason easy enough to hold onto. There wasn’t one. There was only me. Wanting to feel wanted. Taking it. Then coming home. Again and again and again. Downstairs, Elsie laughed. I froze. It was quiet. Brief. Barely more than an exhale. But I heard it.

I stood and opened the door before I could stop myself. From the top of the stairs, I could see part of the living room. Elsie stood near the couch, phone in one hand, the other pressed lightly over her mouth like she was trying not to wake the twins. Her shoulders shook once.

A real laugh. Not the brittle one she used with me now. Not polite. Not careful. Real. Something ugly and aching opened in my chest. I knew without asking it was Luca. Or Liv. Or one of the women in that group chat that had become her lifeline while I was still pretending I had any claim to that role.

She looked softer in that half-second than she had looked with me in months.

And the worst part was not the jealousy. It was the awareness. She still existed. The woman I missed was still there. Just not for me. I stepped back before she could look up and see me watching. I closed the spare room door quietly. Then I sat on the edge of the bed in the dark and finally understood the thing I had been fighting since the gathering.

Elsie had not left the house. She had not packed bags or taken the twins or walked out dramatically into some clean new beginning. She was still downstairs. Still in the same rooms. Still saying necessary words to me in a calm voice. But she was gone. Emotionally. Completely. And I had no idea how to reach someone whose absence was sitting right in front of me.

Sixteen

I arrive at Clara’s office mid-morning, still in my standard-issue leggings and an oversized shirt with a suspicious stain near the hem I noticed in the car and decided was someone else’s problem. I feel like an impostor as I step out of the elevator, as if someone is about to appear with a clipboard and a disappointed expression to inform me that mothers of twins with visible coffee stains are not permitted in serious legal spaces.

The receptionist, the same woman who greeted me when I first came here, smiles warmly.

“Ms. Quinn,” she says, already reaching for the phone. “You can go right in. Clara is expecting you.”

The office is small but warm, her conversation table still in place and a small window overlooking a car park. No personal photos. No mugs with “World’s Best Lawyer” printed on them. Just simple surfaces and the quality of intentional space that makes me want to check my shoes for mud before entering.

Clara is already seated at her desk, a pen in one hand and her attention already focused on the file in front of her. She’s as put together as normal, with dark hair pulled back in a simple ponytail and the posture of someone who has never once wondered if they have chocolate on their top. She looks up when I enter, her expression changing from concentration to professional welcome in a single, fluid motion.