PART 2 — TOMORROW BECAME THREE YEARS

“Why did you cancel it?” I demanded.

Sarah touched the edge of her untouched espresso cup.

“I saw an article about the memorial.”

Marcus glanced at her, but she continued without looking at him.

“There was a photograph of you holding Lily beside the coffin. You looked like someone who had forced himself to remain standing because falling apart would have hurt the baby in his arms.”

I remembered that photograph.

Lily had slept against my chest through most of the service.

Every person who hugged me called her a blessing.

None of them knew what to say when that blessing woke up crying for a mother who could not answer.

“I thought that if I suddenly returned, I would destroy the life you had built around losing me,” Sarah said.

A humorless laugh escaped me.

“The life I built?”

“You survived.”

“I ate meals standing over the kitchen sink because Lily screamed whenever I put her down.”

Sarah’s fingers curled against the table.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I watched videos,” she said. “Marcus found some online. Your sister posted birthdays, Christmas mornings and the day Lily took her first steps.”

I turned toward him.

“You let her watch our daughter through a screen instead of taking her home?”

Marcus’s jaw tightened.

“Every time she promised she would leave the next day.”

I looked back at Sarah.

“The next day?”

“The first time, I still couldn’t walk without assistance,” she said. “Then I was struggling to speak. After that, I was ashamed of the scars and afraid Lily wouldn’t recognize me.”

She pulled her sleeve down over her wrist, although the afternoon was warm.

“Then Lily’s first birthday passed. I thought I had already missed too much. Every day I stayed away made returning the next day more difficult.”

“That isn’t an explanation.”

“No,” she agreed.

“It’s cowardice.”

Sarah nodded.

“Yes.”

I had expected her to defend herself.

I wanted her to argue, blame Marcus or invent an excuse so outrageous that hating her would become simple.

Instead, she accepted the ugliest word I could give her.

Marcus finally stepped forward.

“You can blame me for keeping her existence secret.”

“I already do.”

“But I didn’t encourage her to stay,” he said. “I begged her to return. At first, I tried to be patient. Later, we screamed at each other in hospitals, rental apartments and airport parking lots.”

He paused.

“I bought several plane tickets. She never used them.”

“How noble of you.”

“No,” Marcus replied. “Nothing about this was noble.”

His refusal to become defensive irritated me more than anger would have.

“My wife died seven years ago,” he continued. “She had cancer. Near the end, she refused to let our son visit because she was terrified that he would remember only the hospital room.”

His eyes moved toward Sarah.

“I told my wife she was wrong. I also remember how impossible it was to convince someone who believed fear was protecting the people she loved.”

Sarah continued staring at Lily’s knitted duck.

“When Sarah became overwhelmed in crowded places, her therapist taught her to hold something,” Marcus explained. “The edge of a table. A cup. Sometimes my hand, when nothing else was nearby.”

I looked through the terrace railing toward the café below.

Only minutes earlier, the sight of Marcus holding my wife’s hand had felt like confirmation of the cruelest betrayal imaginable.

Now the same gesture had another explanation.

That did not make it less painful.

In some ways, it made everything worse.

The truth was refusing to give me a simple villain.

Sarah reached toward the yellow duck again.

Before she could touch it, I pulled it from the diaper bag.

The yellow yarn had faded after years of washing. One button eye was becoming loose, and the beak was misshapen from the months Lily had chewed it while teething.

The left wing was crooked.

Lily had carried the duck through illnesses, thunderstorms and every unfamiliar hotel room we had ever entered.

When Sarah saw it clearly, a small sound escaped her.

It was not quite a sob.

It sounded more like someone recognizing a home they no longer had permission to enter.

“I made that before she was born,” Sarah whispered.

“I know.”

“I always meant to repair the wing.”

“You didn’t.”

Her hand hovered above the toy.

I did not give it to her.

“Why didn’t you come home?” I asked again.

Sarah stared at the duck instead of meeting my eyes.

“Because every morning, I told myself I would return tomorrow.”

Her fingertip touched the table beside it.

“And eventually, tomorrow became three years.”

For a long time, no one spoke.

The truth had no clean shape.

Sarah had not deliberately replaced me with Marcus.

She had not created a happy new family without us.

But she had also stayed away after remembering that her husband and daughter existed.

All those things could be true at once, leaving my anger with nowhere comfortable to settle.

“What did you think would happen if I discovered you?” I asked.

“I didn’t believe I could continue living in the same world as you without eventually coming home.”

“That is still not an answer.”

Her eyes finally met mine.

“I thought you would hate me.”

“I do.”

Sarah nodded slowly.

“I know.”

Marcus stepped away from the table.

When he reached the terrace door, he stopped.

“I did damage your company,” he admitted. “At the time, I convinced myself it was simply business.”

“Was it?”

“No.”

He placed his hand on the door.

“I was a smaller man then. Losing my wife did not immediately turn me into a better one.”

Then he left us alone.

Sarah and I remained on the terrace until the sunlight shifted and long shadows stretched across the table.

We did not forgive each other.

We did not decide what would happen next.

She told me about the hospital, the physical therapy and the words she had once been unable to remember.

I told her about Lily.

I told her our daughter called the moon “the night balloon.”

I told her Lily hated socks with seams, loved olives, feared elevators and became furious whenever the sleeves of her clothes got wet.

Sarah wrote every detail on a paper napkin.

Purple toothbrush.

Afraid of elevators.

Likes olives.

Hates wet sleeves.

I watched her copy our daughter’s life onto that small piece of paper as though someone might take the information from her if she did not hold it tightly enough.

When I finally stood, Sarah rose as well.

This time, she did not need to hold the chair for support.

“Can I see her?” she asked.

“Not today.”

She nodded too quickly, trying to conceal her disappointment.

“Okay.”

I studied her face.

“Do not disappear before tomorrow.”

Her eyes closed briefly.

“I won’t.”

I placed the yellow duck on the table.

Sarah did not touch it until I pushed it closer.

“Lily will expect that back,” I told her.

She picked it up carefully with both hands.

“I know.”

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