The Man Who Can't Let Her Go novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The East Wing
Lydia finds her closet untouched and her ring on a chain at Hayden's neck; their first touch is on the stairs, and Cissy tells the staff she is only visiting.
The house on Larch Row had every light on at two in the morning.
The housekeeper opened the front door before Lydia reached the top step.
She said nothing at first.
She took Lydia's bag out of her hand, and her eyes were wet.
"Welcome home, Mrs. VanAlen."
"I'm only here for thirty days," Lydia said.
"Yes, ma'am," the housekeeper said, and kept the bag anyway.
Hayden came in behind her and shut the door.
He did not speak in the hall.
He did not speak on the stairs, either, though she could hear him one step below her the whole way up.
The house smelled the way it always had, of floor wax and cold oranges.
She had not expected that to hurt.
On the landing her heel missed the edge of the top stair.
She was too tired to catch it, and she pitched sideways.
A hand closed on her elbow and a second came flat against her back.
It held her upright.
Heat went through her coat from the place where his palm sat.
Neither of them moved.
Hayden's breath came uneven on her hair.
"Let go," she said.
He let go at once.
"That was a catch," he said. "It doesn't count."
"It counts."
"Then I'll start counting from tomorrow."
She walked down the east corridor without looking back.
The door of the east wing was already open.
Fresh sheets were folded on the end of the bed.
A vase of white roses stood on the dresser, and the room smelled of vanilla.
Lydia put her hand on the dresser to steady herself.
Her old perfume bottle stood beside the vase, with its glass stopper laid on its side.
She lifted it to the light.
It was empty, and the inside of the glass was dry.
She had left it half full.
Hayden stood in the doorway holding her suitcase, which he had taken from the housekeeper without a word.
He set it on the rug and kept his eyes on it.
"Cissy has been doing the flowers every week," he said. "She said you'd want them."
"That was kind of her."
"She has been kind to everyone."
Lydia said nothing.
He bent to straighten the suitcase handle, and his collar fell open.
A thin gold chain slipped out and swung on his neck.
A ring hung from it.
It was a plain gold band with a chip on the inside edge.
She had chipped it herself, dropping it on a church step on their wedding day.
She knew it before she saw the chip.
It was her wedding ring.
Hayden's hand flew up and shoved the chain back under his shirt.
He did not look at her.
"You left it on the pillow," he said. "I tried to put it in a drawer."
"You've worn it for three years."
"I couldn't make the drawer close."
Her chest ached so hard she looked away.
She wanted to ask him why he had never come to Port Alder, not once, with that ring around his neck.
She did not ask.
"Good night, Lydia."
"Hayden."
"Thirty days," he said, and he went out and closed the door behind him.
She stood very still for a long time.
Then she opened the closet.
Every dress she had owned was still on its hanger, in the order she had hung them.
Her winter boots stood in a row.
His side of the closet was empty.
Not one shirt of his was left.
She turned around and looked at the bed.
The pillow on her side was plumped hard and smooth, as if someone had worked at it a long time.
A man's gray sweater lay folded over the footboard, and she knew the sweater.
It was his.
Someone knocked, and the housekeeper put her head in with a folded towel.
"Mrs. VanAlen, I wasn't going to say."
"Say what?"
The housekeeper looked at the sweater, then at the closet.
"He never moved out, ma'am. Not one night."
"Where does he sleep?"
"In this room." The housekeeper's voice dropped. "On your side."
Lydia could not speak.
"Miss Cissy had me change the bed an hour ago," the housekeeper said.
"She said it would upset you to find it slept in."
Down the corridor, a door opened, and a soft voice called out, easy and warm.
"Is she settled? I'll bring up some cocoa."
Cissy came into view at the top of the stairs in her gray coat, a tray in her hands.
"Remember, she's only here to visit Henrietta," she told the housekeeper, gently. "Let's not make a fuss over her."
Then she smiled at Lydia and held out the cup.
Lydia took it.
It was warm, and she did not drink from it.
She was thinking of a man who had slept on her side of the bed for three years.
She had not been told, and she did not know what to do with it.
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