Chapter 349: You just got here
Amara left the folder on the desk, waved a quick goodbye to the floor as she passed, and was in the elevator before Adele could find anything else that needed her signature.
She left early enough to miss the worst of the traffic, and by the time she pulled into the driveway, the sky had gone that soft gold color it turned right before evening properly set in.
The house smelled like garlic and something simmering when she walked through the kitchen door, one of the maids stirring a pot with the quiet efficiency of someone who’d worked in this house long enough to know exactly how Amara liked things done, and Amara stood there a moment just supervising, hands on the counter, glad for once to have nothing more urgent to think about than dinner.
That was when Julian walked in.
He had flowers, the way he always did an enormous, absurd bouquet that some assistant of his had clearly been instructed to source on short notice, because Julian himself would never have had the time between one continent and the next to pick them out.
He looked exhausted, the way he always looked after a long stretch of travel, shadows under his eyes, his tie loosened, his jacket slung over one arm like it had become too heavy to keep on properly.
But one look at his wife, and something in his face changed. He knew. He always knew, even after everything, even after years of this same routine the leaving, the returning, the flowers meant to bridge the gap between the two. He knew she’d missed him.
"Baby," he started, setting the flowers down on the counter and reaching for her.
She let herself lean into it for exactly as long as it lasted, which wasn’t long enough.
"I need to leave and meet someone," Julian said, already stepping back, already checking his watch. "I’ll be back soon."
"What, you just got here?" Amara said, and she heard the complaint in her own voice and didn’t bother softening it.
"I know. I know, baby, I’m sorry. But we can talk later." He was already moving toward the door, phone in hand, thumb tapping out a message to someone as he went, not even looking up to catch the expression on her face, which was probably for the best, because it wasn’t a kind one.
And then he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him. The flowers sat on the counter between the pot of simmering garlic and Amara’s abandoned car keys, still wrapped in cellophane, still beautiful, entirely useless.
Amara stood there for a long moment, staring at the space where her husband had just been.
"Ma’am?" One of the maids, Fiona, was watching her carefully from the stove, the way staff who’d been in the house long enough learned to watch close enough to notice, careful enough not to be caught noticing.
"Should I set the table for how many?"
"Four," Amara said automatically, and then corrected herself. "Three. Mr. Julian will be out." She heard how flat her own voice sounded and tried to smooth it over with something lighter. "He’ll eat when he gets back."
Fiona nodded and said nothing else, which Amara appreciated more than she could say.
She was still standing in the kitchen, arms crossed, staring at nothing in particular, when she heard the front door again lighter footsteps this time, a bag dropped somewhere in the hall, the particular rhythm of a twelve-year-old who had clearly run at least part of the way from the bus stop.
"Mummy, I’m home!" JJ’s voice carried through the house before she did, and then she appeared in the kitchen doorway, blazer half off one shoulder, cheeks flushed from the walk. "Is that dinner? It smells so good. Where’s Daddy? I saw his car."
"He had to go meet someone, baby," Amara said, and made herself smile, because JJ didn’t deserve to inherit the flatness in her mother’s voice. "He’ll be back soon."
JJ’s face fell only slightly, she was used to this, in the particular way children of frequently absent fathers learn to absorb disappointment quickly and move past it, storing it somewhere they don’t examine too closely.
"Oh. Okay. Can I have a snack before dinner?"
"A small one."
JJ was already halfway into the pantry, narrating something about her day a debate club meeting, a boy in her class who’d gotten in trouble for bringing a comic book that turned out to actually be educational, a teacher who pronounced photosynthesis wrong and none of the students had the heart to correct her and Amara let the chatter wash over her, grateful for it, grateful for a twelve-year-old who filled silences without being asked to.
"How was the bus?" Amara asked when JJ paused for breath.
"So much better than being dropped off, Mummy, I told you." JJ climbed onto a stool at the kitchen island, a granola bar already half unwrapped.
"Nobody stared at me today. Well, one girl did, but she stares at everyone, it’s not personal."
"Good," Amara said, and meant it, even as some old worry stirred underneath the memory of two years ago, the names, the tears JJ had tried to hide under her pillow before Amara found out anyway.
"Where’s Justina? And Josh?"
"Not home yet," Amara said. "They’ll be here soon."
She busied herself setting the table for three, moving plates and cutlery with more precision than the task really required, the kind of busy work that kept her hands occupied while her mind ran in circles.
Julian’s face when he’d looked at her, that split second of knowing replayed itself over and over, set against the second half of the same moment, the door closing, the message he’d been typing before he’d even left the kitchen.
She told herself it was the deal. The deal closing meant loose ends, meant handshakes that needed to happen in person, meant exactly the kind of urgency that had defined the last several years of their marriage.
She told herself this the way she told herself most things lately, with conviction that didn’t quite reach all the way down.