He paused. "Got it?"
My eyes burned, stinging with everything I couldn't say. Regret. Shame. Hope I wasn't sure I deserved. I nodded, slow and stiff, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. My heart felt like it was collapsing in on itself, but somehow still beating.

"Yes, sir," I whispered, barely louder than breath.
He raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, "Sir'? What am I, a Civil War reenactor? Should I fetch my monocle and start talking about the good ol' days? Call me Joe, Bass Boss," and he laughed at his own joke.

Oh God..
***
POV: October

It had been two weeks since the public scandal broke and the legal storm that followed. The house had slowly returned to a strange kind of normal—quiet, tentative, almost suspended in time. Every evening, Thomas came home, and every evening I went out. I told him I was catching up with friends, blowing off steam. That wasn't entirely untrue. But in reality, I'd gone back to school.
Not to finish my old psychology degree—I let that version of myself go a long time ago—but to study something new. Something that made me feel alive again. I enrolled in a certification program in fragrance design and product development. Perfumery. At first, it sounded ridiculous. Who was I to believe I could blend oils and notes into something people might actually wear? But I couldn't stop thinking about it—about scent, memory, emotion. How something so invisible could be so powerful. For the first time in years, I imagined waking up excited—not exhausted or defeated before the day even began. I imagined pouring myself into work that didn't drain me but filled me. Work that smelled like lavender oil and citrus peels, that shimmered with color and intention. Maybe perfumes, maybe skincare, maybe candles. I didn't know yet. But I knew I wanted to create.
More importantly, I wanted to be present.
I didn't want a job that consumed every corner of my life. I wanted something that gave me space—space to pick up my kids from school, to cook with them, to dance in the kitchen on a Tuesday night. I wanted a part-time job that paid the bills while I built something slowly, carefully, intentionally. A job that gave me the flexibility to be both mother and maker. Nurturer and entrepreneur.
I didn't tell Thomas yet. Not about the classes, not about the formulas I was mixing in old jam jars in the laundry room, and definitely not about the divorce. No matter what he'd done, I could see he was hurting. Deeply. His father's betrayal, the implosion of our marriage, the long silence from his mother—he was carrying it all like a quiet storm. And I didn't want to add another crash of thunder.
But I was glad he came every day.
Glad he stayed every night with the kids, even if the bed next to mine stayed cold. There was something grounding—comforting, even—about knowing he was in the next room reading bedtime stories or packing school lunches, like he was finally choosing to exist in the parts of our lives he used to miss.
Watching him play with Lola—her delighted shrieks echoing down the hallway as he chased her with a plush dragon and exaggerated roars—something inside me twisted in a way that was hard to name. A sharp, aching tenderness.
Where was this version of you when I needed you most?
The man I begged for years to be present, to just look at me, to see me, now showed up. Not perfectly. Not consistently. And not as my husband anymore. But as a father—solid, attentive, gentle. And that still mattered.
It mattered more than I wanted to admit. Because no matter how angry I was, how deeply the betrayal ran, I could see the effort now. And effort—when it's genuine—is magnetic. It draws you in. Makes you wonder. Makes you hope.