Perfect Husband Act: Now My Wife's Sorry novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Empty Chair
On his third anniversary, Ethan sits at a table set for two while the system tells him he has failed and has three days left; he decides to stop fighting, and Audrey's phone shows a text from Travis: does he still not know?
The waiter lit the candle for the third time, and the couple at the next table stopped pretending not to look.
It was our third anniversary.
My wife's chair had been empty for two hours and ten minutes.
I had reserved the corner table back in August, and I had ordered her favorite wine before she even sat down.
She never sat down.
At 8:15 she texted me: "Work thing, ten minutes. Order without me."
At 9:00 she texted: "Almost there. Don't be dramatic."
The woman at the next table leaned over and asked if my wife was coming.
"She's on her way," I said.
Her husband looked hard at his plate, and the waiter took away the second place setting without being asked.
I opened the family locator on my phone, the one she had set up for emergencies.
My wife's dot was sitting inside a downtown office building, on the third floor.
Travis Bannon's office, Bannon Advisory.
Of course it was.
"Sir?" the waiter said. "Would you like me to hold the entrées?"
"Bring one," I said. "I'll eat for both of us."
He nodded and did not meet my eyes.
I cut into the steak and did not taste it.
For three years I had been trying to win the woman who owned that empty chair.
Three years ago I woke up in this man's life on the morning of his wedding, with a voice in my head that called itself the system.
It gave me one mission: make Audrey Hartigan love me, and hear her say it, and mean it.
I had given it everything.
I made her coffee every morning for a thousand days.
I learned the names of her plants, her clients and her dead father's favorite songs.
I brought flowers on Tuesdays so that no one could say I only brought them on holidays.
She thanked me, politely, every time.
Then a year ago she stopped looking at me.
She started sending money to Travis on the 28th of every month, four thousand dollars at a time, and she never told me why.
I fought her about it until I was hoarse.
She never fought back.
She just looked tired, and said, "It's my money, Ethan."
I had noticed one other thing about the 28th.
Every month, the same day her transfer went out, the system said: *Extension granted.*
It said it every month for three years, and never said why.
I never asked it who was granting it.
At 10:40 the system spoke again.
*Mission failed. Deadline reached: three years.*
I put my fork down.
*Grace period granted: three days. At midnight on the third day, you will be removed from this world.*
The restaurant went on around me.
A man at the bar laughed.
A server dropped a spoon.
*Do you wish to use your three days?*
I looked at the empty chair, and the candle burning in front of it.
I did not ask what removed meant.
My banking app pinged on the table.
The shared account showed a scheduled transfer: Bannon Advisory, four thousand dollars, tonight.
On our anniversary.
Three years of fighting about it, and I could not make myself be angry.
I was too tired.
I paid the check, tipped the waiter forty percent, and blew out the candle myself.
"Happy anniversary," the waiter said quietly.
"Thank you," I said. "She'll be sorry she missed it."
I did not believe that.
But I said it to him as a joke, and I laughed, and it was the first time in a year I had laughed without checking whether she could hear.
In the car, I made a decision.
I was done waiting up.
I was done fighting about Travis, and the money, and the late nights, and the tired voice she used every time she said my name.
If I only had three days, I would not spend them on a war I had already lost.
I would be the perfect husband, for the first time, with no hope in it.
So I stopped.
I went home and turned off the porch light, and then, because it was a habit, I turned it back on.
I laid out her slippers by the door.
I left a glass of water on her nightstand.
I did not wait up.
At 2:07 in the morning the front door opened.
I heard her keys land in the dish.
I heard her stop in the hall outside the bedroom, and stay there.
I kept my eyes closed.
"Ethan?" Audrey said quietly. "Are you awake?"
I said nothing.
A moment later she crossed the room and set her phone on the pillow beside me.
She went into the bathroom, and the water ran.
The screen lit up under my cheek.
It was a message, still on the lock screen.
*Travis: Does he still not know?*
I read it once.
Then the screen went dark, and the water kept running.
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