The Wife He Forgot Was The One He Loved Most Chapter 06
The day I was discharged, Ethan came to pick me up.
I stood on the steps with a canvas bag on my shoulder—two boxes of medicine and a change of clothes inside.
He saw me come out and reached for the bag.
I turned slightly, opened the back door of the car, and got in on my own.
In the rearview mirror, he stood there for two seconds before closing the passenger door.
Neither of us said anything on the drive.
He still brought me to Ashwood.
The car pulled through the front gates. I pushed the door open and got out, slung the canvas bag over my shoulder, and punched in the gate code from muscle memory.
The fingerprint lock chirped once. The door opened.
Ethan followed two steps behind. His dress shoes crunched on the crushed-stone path.
The living room hadn’t changed.
The sofa cushions were still askew. On the shoe cabinet in the foyer, the little tray where he tossed his car keys was empty.
Under the coffee table, a grocery receipt was pressed flat. The date was two days before the accident. Yogurt and bananas.
“You take this side.” Ethan stood in the entryway, one foot inside, the other still on the threshold. “I’m going back to the office.”
“All right.”
He didn’t move. He was staring at me.
I bent to change my shoes. My hair slid down from behind my ear and covered half my face. He couldn’t see my expression.
“Anna.”
“Something else?”
He paused. Whatever it was got stuck somewhere in his throat, and in the end all he said was, “Call me if you need anything.”
The door closed. Quietly, as if not to spook a cat.
I stood in the foyer for a moment. Then I tossed the canvas bag onto the couch, sank into the cushions, and rested a hand on my lower belly.
“You hear that?” I said to my stomach. “Your dad moved out.”
“But Mom’s got money in the bank. Enough to keep us in style.”
My phone rang while I was staring at the ceiling.
Chloe.
“You moved back yet? He shacking up with Vivienne?”
“He said he’s staying at the office.”
Chloe paused for half a beat. “…So what is he even after?”
I was wondering the same thing.
The next day at noon, I got an iMessage.
Lily, the receptionist who’d taken over my old post, had screenshotted two comments from X.
One: That Sinclair receptionist really knows what she’s doing. Waits until he loses his memory and then traps him with a baby.
The other: Vivienne comes home to find her house has been robbed. Lmao, plot twists wilder than Colleen Hoover.
Lily followed it with a string of ellipses. Anna—Vivienne might be feeding this stuff to people. Watch your back.
I opened X. Sure enough, way down on the trending list: #SinclairReceptionistTrapsCEO
Vivienne’s fans dominated the comments, each meaner than the last.
The one that stung most: Chaining a man with a baby—shameless.
I dropped back against the couch and pressed the phone screen against my chest.
Chaining him? With the baby?
Ridiculous.
…
The day the money hit my account, I dragged Chloe out to a rooftop bar to celebrate.
She lifted her glass and arched a brow. “You really letting go?”
“What’s there to hold on to? He doesn’t even like me.”
The server came over. Chloe ordered an espresso martini. I ordered a virgin mojito.
Her eyebrows climbed higher. “You’re not drinking?”
“Stomach’s been off.”
She eyed me suspiciously for two seconds, but didn’t press.
Mid-sentence, my phone buzzed. Ethan’s name.
I picked up. His voice was low.
“Don’t look at what’s on X. I’m handling it.”
“Handling what?” I laughed, tucking my feet up under me on the couch. “Sending cease-and-desist letters? Vivienne too?”
He was quiet for a few seconds. “Anna, I know you’re angry…”
“I’m not angry.” I cut him off. “I’m really not.”
The line went silent for a long time. Wind in the background. He was probably out on a balcony.
“I’ll make this right for you.”
Then he hung up.
I clicked through to Vivienne’s Instagram. She’d just posted.
A bunch of white roses in a glazed ceramic vase, sunlight slanting through the window, the petals translucent.
Caption: Worth waiting for the right one.
White roses.
I stared at it for three seconds, then swiped away.
Ryan’s message popped up right then.
Anna. I opened a photography studio. If you’re interested, come by anytime.
I stared at the chat window, trying to place who Ryan was.
Stella’s college classmate. We’d met once over dinner.
I’d had my camera in my bag that day, and while we were waiting on food I’d snapped a shot of an old man selling roasted chestnuts through the window. Ryan had come over to look and asked for my contact info on the spot.
I went to community college. Won’t I embarrass you?
That series you did on DoorDash couriers is still on the wall in my studio. Come. You decide what we shoot.
I looked up at the ceiling and let one corner of my mouth curl.
The DoorDash couriers—four years ago.
I’d crouched under an overpass for three nights, gotten caught in the rain, and come home with a fever that lasted three days.
Ethan had just married me back then. He’d brought me water in the middle of the night, put pills in my palm, pressed the back of his hand to my forehead to check the temperature. His face had gathered in a knot. “Don’t do that again.”
And I hadn’t.
The camera had sat in the cabinet for four years. Last time I’d pulled it out to shoot the honeysuckle downstairs, the screen came up black, the battery swollen.
I wrote back to Ryan: Address.
Then I got up and went to the bedroom and slid open the cabinet door.
The camera bag was at the bottom, a layer of dust across the leather.
I lifted it out. The zipper was sticky. I gave it a yank and it opened.
The body was reassuringly heavy. I unscrewed the lens cap. My own face reflected in the glass.
I raised it, aimed at the maple tree beyond the window, and pressed the shutter.
In the viewfinder, red leaves were drifting down.
I smiled.
Starting today, I wasn’t going to be Mrs. Sinclair.
I was going to be Anna Whitmore.