The Contract Wife Chapter 12
I saw him again a year later.
At a large charity auction gala in New York.
I was there representing Sinclair Capital.
As I stepped into the room, I saw him across the crowd.
He was in a wheelchair. Still in a well-cut custom suit, but noticeably thinner, the line of his jaw sharper than before. There was a shadow in his eyes now that wouldn’t lift.
He saw me and visibly stilled.
Then, a small nod. A polite acknowledgment.
I nodded in return, looked away, and let the crowd carry me into the ballroom.
When the evening ended, I stood at the hotel’s side entrance waiting for my car.
The soft roll of wheels came from behind me and stopped three paces away.
“Evelyn.”
I turned.
He had to look up at me now.
A year had left its mark. He looked older. The old certainty and cool reserve were gone from his eyes, replaced by something I couldn’t read.
“It’s been a while,” he said.
“Mm.” I nodded. “Are you all right?”
He blinked, then let out a small, self-mocking laugh, lowering his head. “I’m fine. Alive.”
My gaze slid to his lap, to the thin blanket covering his legs.
He followed my eyes down, then looked back up. His voice was as level as a man stating a fact:
“The doctors said I won’t walk again. This… this is probably it.”
He looked at me. For a long time, he said nothing. Then, softly:
“Evelyn… is there still a chance for us?”
The question came out quietly, as if he already knew the answer before asking it.
I looked at him.
I remembered those ten years.
Then I smiled, just a little.
“I threw that journal away a long time ago.”
He said nothing.
Only looked at me. His lips moved, but no sound came out.
Headlights swept across us from behind. My car had arrived.
“I’m going now,” I said. “Take care.”
I turned, opened the door, bent, slid inside.
The car pulled forward and merged smoothly into the late-night flow of the city.
In the rearview mirror, he was still there.
Sitting in his wheelchair. The light spilling from the hotel lobby stretched his silhouette out long across the pavement.
I watched the shape of him grow smaller. Then I looked away and faced the road ahead.
That night, my personal assistant handed me a letter.
There was no sender’s name. But I recognized the handwriting.
Inside the envelope was a single photograph.
Taken during our first year of marriage, on vacation in the Hamptons.
I was crouched on the beach, gathering shells, my hair thrown wild by the wind. I was looking back at him and laughing, eyes crescented.
I hadn’t even known he was taking it.
On the back, in fountain pen:
“That was the day I first thought: marrying you might be the luckiest thing that ever happened to me. I only understood it too late.”
I turned the photograph over and looked at it for a long time.
Then I placed it, along with the envelope, in the bottom drawer of my desk.
That night, I dreamed.
I was back in the autumn of 2015. The Columbia campus.
He was standing under the trees outside Butler Library, in a white shirt, reading a book.
Only this time, I didn’t walk over to him.