I Left to Make Him Follow, and He Let Me Go for Three Years novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Lilac

"Who is Marta?" I asked.

We were in the car, and Ansel had both hands on the wheel at ten and two.

He did not take his eyes off the empty street.

"She is not at the annex," he said. "I called the watchman back. Magda asked for the key and he told her no. She went home."

"That's not what I asked," I said.

"I know it is not."

"Ansel."

"Not tonight," he said, and his voice cracked down the middle. "I will tell you. I swear it. But I cannot do it in a car at four in the morning."

I looked at his profile in the passing streetlights.

He looked ill.

He looked like a man holding a full glass at arm's length, and I could see the muscles trembling.

"Tonight," I said.

"Soon," he said. "Please."

"You are very bad at asking for things."

"I am learning."

We drove the rest of the way in silence.

At the house he ran water in the old claw-foot tub on the second floor without being asked.

I stood in the bathroom doorway in my coat and watched the steam rise.

He had bought that tub himself, at an estate sale, the first winter we were married.

It had taken four men and a block and tackle to get it up the stairs.

He had laughed more that day than I had heard him laugh before or since.

"Get in," said Ansel.

"You first," I said.

"I will wash the glass dust off in the shower."

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