The brass key sat on the bedside table for two days.
I moved it once to make room for a glass of water, then returned it to the same place.
I still hadn't asked my father what it opened.
Part of me suspected it was important.
Another part of me was afraid that asking would turn the quiet kindness of his gesture into something I had to understand and respond to.
I wasn't ready for another decision.
I was still learning how to get through a day with Lily.
I was learning when she was hungry and when she wanted to be held.
I was learning how to change her clothes without waking her completely.
I was learning that the yellow blanket had to be folded carefully because the loose thread caught on the side of the crib.
Those things were enough.
My father seemed to understand.
He never asked me whether I planned to return to Emmett.
He never asked whether I had spoken to a lawyer or whether I wanted him to call anyone.
He simply made sure I had what I needed.
One morning, I found a small stack of clean clothes folded on the chair.
Another day, there was a fresh pitcher of water beside the nursery door.
He didn't announce any of it.
He didn't make me thank him.
He had always been a practical man.
When I was young, he showed love by fixing the broken latch on my bedroom window or leaving the porch light on when I came home late.
He wasn't a man who made grand speeches.
He made sure the light worked.
I had forgotten how much that mattered.
Emmett called again that evening.
I answered because I wanted to know whether he had anything to say beyond asking me to come home.
"How is Lily?"
The question caught me off guard.
"She's fine."
"Is she eating normally?"
"Yes."
He paused.
"Good."
I waited for him to ask about me.
He didn't.
Instead, he said, "My mother thinks we should all sit down and talk."
I looked toward the window.
"Who is all?"
"Me, you, Mom, and Maya, perhaps."
I almost asked why Maya needed to be there.
Then I understood that the question itself was part of the problem.
He still imagined this as a family disagreement to be settled around a table.
He hadn't understood that the dinner table was where the problem had become impossible for me to ignore.
"I don't want a meeting with your mother and Maya."
"They're involved."
"How?"
"They're family."
I held the phone against my ear.
"So am I."
He didn't answer.
I waited a few seconds, hoping he might hear what he had just asked me to accept.
Then I said, "If you want to talk to me about our marriage, you can talk to me."
"My mother is part of my life."
"I haven't asked you to remove her from it."
"Then why are you making this a choice?"
I looked at Lily, sleeping in the crib.
"I'm asking you to understand that being your wife doesn't mean I have to accept being treated like an inconvenience."
He sighed.
"I never said you were an inconvenience."
"You said it would be easier for everyone if I stayed home."
"That isn't the same thing."
"It felt the same from where I was standing."
He went quiet.
I could tell he wanted me to give him a way out of the conversation.
A sentence he could agree with.
Something that would let him say we had both made mistakes and leave the rest untouched.
I wasn't ready to give him that.
"Emmett, I need time."
"How much time?"
"I don't know."
"That isn't an answer."
"It's the only honest one I have."
He exhaled.
Then he said he would call later.
I didn't promise to answer.
After we hung up, I sat beside the crib and watched Lily sleep.
I wondered whether I was being unfair.
I wondered whether I should have tried harder to explain myself.
Then I remembered the photograph.
Seven places at the table.
No place for me.
I remembered the message his mother had sent before I had even finished deciding what to do.
And I remembered how Emmett had responded when I told him I was hurt.
He had defended the dinner.
He had defended his mother.
He had defended his own intentions.
He had not asked what it felt like to be me.
I was beginning to understand that I could spend the rest of my life explaining the same wound to someone who preferred to argue that it wasn't deep.
That night, my father knocked on my bedroom door.
I was sitting on the bed with Lily in my arms.
"Are you awake?"
"Yes."
He stepped inside.
He had a small plate in his hand.
"Your dinner."
I smiled weakly.
"I could have come downstairs."
"I know."
He set the plate on the table.
Then he noticed the key.
"You haven't asked me about that."
I looked at it.
"I didn't want to bother you."
He gave me a look I remembered from childhood.
The one that meant he was trying not to laugh at something that wasn't actually funny.
"You've never needed an appointment to ask me a question."
I felt my face grow warm.
"I know."
He sat in the chair beside the window.
I put Lily down in the bassinet and picked up the key.
"What does it open?"
My father looked at it for a moment.
"Something that belongs to you."
I turned the brass between my fingers.
"Can you tell me what?"
"When you're ready."
I almost protested.
Then I looked at him properly.
He wasn't teasing me.
He wasn't trying to create suspense or make me curious.
He was giving me permission not to know everything at once.
"I don't understand why you didn't just tell me."
He folded his hands.
"Because you called me asking for a ride, not a plan for your life."
I looked down at the key.
"I don't know what I'm going to do."
"That's all right."
"What if I make the wrong decision?"
"Then you'll deal with it when you get there."
He spoke so simply that I had no answer.
I had spent so much time trying to predict what Emmett would think, what his mother would say, and how everyone would react if I refused to go along with them.
I had forgotten that I could make a decision without knowing exactly how it would end.
My father rose.
"Eat your dinner before it gets cold."
I smiled despite myself.
"Yes, Dad."
He paused at the door.
"Nora?"
I looked up.
"You don't owe anyone a decision just because they're impatient for one."
Then he left.
I sat with the key in my hand.
I thought about my marriage.
I thought about Lily.
I thought about the woman I had been before I learned to swallow every disagreement to keep the peace.
I didn't know what would happen next.
But I knew I wasn't ready to return to the house where I had been told that my absence would make the evening easier.
And I knew that if Emmett wanted me to come home, he would have to understand why I had left.
Not merely how to get me back.
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: Emmett Wanted an Answer Before He Understood the Question, and I Finally Stopped Trying to Give Him One
My Husband Put On His Dinner Jacket While I Stood in the Kitchen With Our Six-Day-Old Daughter
Part 7 of 12
