The Wife He Never Knew I Became novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: The Step

He was waiting at the front door when I walked in, and he didn't hold his hand out for the ring.

I set my bag on the hall table. My father's photo slid half out of it, laughing.

Holden looked at it, and then at me.

"Are you ashamed of being my wife?" he said.

I had been ready for anger. Not for that.

"No."

"Then help me understand." He leaned against the wall with his arms folded. "Your family just called you a whore, and you let them. Rather than say my name."

"It isn't about your name."

"It's my name you won't say."

"If I say it tonight, I say it on my aunt's phone, crying, in a parked car."

I pulled off my wet coat.

"Not like that. I want them all in one room."

"So they get to call you that until you find the right room."

"That's not fair."

"It's not fair," he agreed. "None of it is fair. I'm the one who has to stand there."

I stared at him.

"Fourteen months," he said. "I've kept every rule. I don't touch you in public. I call you Ms. Chen in my own building. I set an empty chair for my wife at every dinner and watch people wonder what's wrong with her."

"I know."

"Tonight I was across the river making risotto." His voice didn't rise. That was the frightening part. "I should have been in that dining room, Lena. Standing behind your chair. You never once let me ask."

"I asked you to let me do it my way."

"I am letting you."

"Then let me."

"I'm asking when, Lena. That's all. When is ready?"

"When my name's clean."

"Your name isn't theirs to give back."

"You don't get to decide when I'm ready!"

It came out loud. It rang off the glass.

Holden closed his eyes for a second.

"I know," he said quietly. "That's what's killing me."

I picked up my coat again.

"Where are you going?"

"Mei's."

He didn't stop me.

He held the door, which was worse.

Mei lived above a bakery in Chinatown, in two rooms that smelled like pineapple buns at six every morning.

She opened the door in pyjamas with cartoon cats on them, took one look at me, and put a pot of water on.

"Instant noodles," she said. "With an egg. Sit. Talk."

I sat on her sofa and talked.

She cracked an egg into the pot and listened to every word with her back to me.

Then she set the bowl in my lap, sat down on the coffee table facing me, and said, "You're both idiots."

"Thanks."

"He's right that you're hiding. You're right that it's yours to decide. Congratulations. That's a marriage." She pushed her glasses up. "Eat."

I ate.

"You know what I think?" Mei said. "I think you're scared that if you say it, it stops being yours. It becomes the story Margaret tells."

I put my chopsticks down.

"And I think he's scared you'll never say it," she said. "Because then he's just a guy you hide. Like Daniel hid you from his mother's friends for a year. Remember that?"

I did remember.

Mei got up, went to her front window and moved the curtain an inch.

"Also," she said, "he's on the step."

"What?"

"He's been on my front step for an hour. In the rain. He hasn't rung the bell." She let the curtain fall. "I'm going to bed. Don't let him in, the landlord thinks I'm single and wholesome."

I went down the narrow stairs in my socks.

Holden was sitting on the wet concrete step with his back against the bakery's shutter, his coat soaked through, looking at Pender Street.

He didn't turn around when I opened the door.

"I didn't ring," he said. "You said you'd come home when you were ready. I believed you. I just wanted to be closer when you were."

I sat down beside him on the wet step.

"I'm going to say it," I said. "I swear. I just need to say it myself."

"I know." He took my hand. "I'll never say it before you do. Not once. Not even if they set you on fire."

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