Chapter 162

Chapter 162
Ethan

Julian was quiet for a long moment.

"So your solution is to push her away," he said slowly. "To disappear into some Swiss clinic and let her think you abandoned her. To deny her the choice because you've decided she shouldn't have to make it."

"If it means she stays free—"

"You're still not listening." His voice had lost its edge, replaced by something like exhaustion. "You're still making decisions for her. Still treating her like she needs to be managed instead of trusted."

I had no response. The truth sat between us like an uninvited guest.

"She's stronger than you think," Julian said. "Stronger than you've ever given her credit for. She deserves to know—not so she can sacrifice herself, but so she can decide what to do with that information."

"And if she decides to abandon her exhibition? Her career? Everything she's built?"

"Then that's her choice to make. Not yours."

The words landed with a finality that left no room for argument. Something shifted inside me—not agreement, but a crack in the certainty that had sustained me through sleepless nights.

Julian rose from the booth.

"I'm not going to promise you anything," he said, looking down at me. "I care about Mia, and if she needs support, I'll be there—but not because you arranged it. Not because you handed her off."

He paused at the edge of the table.

"I won't tell her about this conversation. That's your responsibility. But if you care about her half as much as you're pretending to, you'll stop making decisions for her."

He turned and walked away. The door swung closed, and I was alone with the silence and the weight of everything I had failed to say.

---

The drive back to the North Shore should have taken forty minutes. Instead, I pulled off Lake Shore Drive into a deserted marina parking lot, unable to focus on the road.

You're using protection as an excuse.

I sat watching the late afternoon light scatter across Lake Michigan. The water was gray-blue, restless with small waves suggesting an approaching storm. The emptiness matched something hollow inside me.

Julian was right. I could feel it like a bruise I kept pressing. Every justification I had constructed collapsed under that single accusation.

You're still making decisions for her.

My phone buzzed. Mia's name on the screen.

Exhibition details finalized! Everything came together today :) Weekend plans still on?

I could picture her typing it—probably at her kitchen table, surrounded by printed proofs and scribbled notes, hair pulled back in that careless ponytail. Happy. Focused. Alive in a way she hadn't been during our first two years.

Proud of you, I typed back. See you Saturday.

Three words that revealed nothing and concealed everything.

The headache was intensifying, pressure building toward something pills couldn't suppress. I needed to get home, lie down in darkness. But I couldn't make myself start the car.

Maybe Julian is right. Maybe I am a coward.

But what was the alternative? Walk into her apartment and watch her face crumble as I explained about the tumor? See her put down her camera and pick up the mantle of caretaker again?

I had watched her do it once. I could not watch her do it again.

If being a coward means she gets to be free, I told myself, then I'll take that.

It was not a satisfying answer. But it was the only one I had.

---

The house was quiet when I arrived, Rosa having taken the twins through their evening routine. I moved through the familiar rooms like a ghost, barely registering the expensive furniture that now felt like props in a life I was preparing to exit.

In my study, I pulled up the document I had been working on for days.

For Leo and Lily.

The cursor blinked, waiting for words I could not find. How did you explain to children who would not remember you that you had loved them? How did you compress a lifetime of fatherhood into paragraphs they might read years from now, searching for connection to a man who had become nothing more than photographs?

I began to type, slowly.

When you're old enough to read this, I want you to know your mother is extraordinary.

I paused, staring at the sentence. It was true—perhaps the truest thing I had ever written—but it felt inadequate. A single line against the vast silence of everything I might never get to say.

The headache surged. The words blurred, doubled, then resolved back into focus.

I could not do this. Not tonight. Not with Julian's accusations still ringing in my ears.

I closed the laptop and sat back, letting darkness settle around me. Through the window, the last light was fading over the lake, water deepening from gray to black.

She's stronger than you think, Julian had said.

But I had spent two years underestimating Mia, and the habit was not easily broken. I could not separate my desire to protect her from my fear of losing her.

I loved her. That much I knew. But love did not automatically confer wisdom about what to do with it.

Down the hall, I could hear Rosa's soft voice reading a bedtime story. Lily made a sound that might have been a laugh. Leo was silent in that watchful way that reminded me, painfully, of myself.

I'll do better, I promised them silently. Whatever time I have left.

It was not enough. But it was all I had.

The night settled over the house, and I remained in my chair, staring at darkness over the lake, waiting for clarity that refused to come.