Sunday arrived with thin clouds and a wind that rattled the recycling bins.
Sondra came back at noon. She parked. She walked up with the duffel lighter than when she left, or maybe it only looked that way. Scout ran to her, then stopped halfway, torn, then completed the run and accepted her hands on his face with a full-body wiggle that made Reggie's throat ache.
"Hey," she said to Reggie.
"Hey."
They sat at the dining table because the couch had become his territory and the bedroom was still a museum of what they had broken.
"I spent three days trying to write you a speech," Sondra said. "It kept turning into excuses dressed as insight. So I stopped. I can only say what is true without polishing it."
"Say it."
"I cheated. I lied by omission every night I let you come home to a house that had held someone else. I used your overtime as cover and then resented you for the overtime. I hurt you. I hurt us. I am ashamed, and shame is not the same as change, but it's where I'm standing."
Reggie nodded slowly. "I heard you. Now hear me. I made our life a schedule. I thought providing was the same as arriving. I missed you while I was busy being impressive for Summit Homes. That doesn't cause what you did. It just means I don't get to pretend I was only the wounded party in a story with one villain."
Tears slipped down her face. She did not wipe them immediately. "Do you want a divorce?"
The word sat between them like a third person.
"I don't know," Reggie said. "Not today. Today I want honesty more than I want a verdict. I want to see if we can live in the same house without turning every kindness into a negotiation. I want—God, Sondra, I want the version of us that could have talked before the hallway. We don't get that version. We get this one."
"Counseling?" she asked.
"Maybe. Separately first. Then together if it isn't just theater."
"Okay."
She hesitated, then pushed forward. "I need you to know I am not asking you to decide you love me tonight. I am asking for enough room to prove I can be trustworthy again. If you decide there isn't enough room, I will still hate what I did, and I will still let you go without making you the villain of my recovery."