Chapter Two: Nora

"Sienna's always dropping things off for Theo. She's family. It's easier if she has the code."

Callum said it without blinking, like he was commenting on the weather.

Theo hugged the macaron box and rolled his eyes at me. "Yeah! You never let me eat anything, and Aunt Sienna always brings me good stuff. And she sings so pretty. No wonder Dad can't stand your voice!"

I limited his sweets because last year he'd had a cavity and cried with the pain half the night.

Apparently, in his mind, all of that was just a list of my crimes.

Sienna was a singer. She was competing in the semifinals of the National Vocal Competition next week.

The year I'd made the finals of that same competition, I should have been on that stage too.

"That's enough." Callum cut his son off with a frown and turned to me. "Nora, go make a pot of honey-and-pear tea for Sienna. It'll help her throat. She has a competition next week."

He hadn't said one word about the divorce.

He never did. Anything he didn't want to hear, he could pretend not to hear, hearing aids or no. When I signed to him, he looked away. If I asked him to pick up flowers on the way home, he'd forget for a month. But Sienna's competition schedule, the fact that she liked the thermostat at seventy-eight, the fact that the only thing she drank was honey-and-pear tea, he remembered every bit of it.

I went into the kitchen and set the pot down hard on the counter.

"If anyone wants tea, they can make it. I don't have time today."

"You don't have time?" Callum looked at me like I'd told a joke. "You're home all day. What else do you have to do besides a little housework?"

Sienna hurried over with a glass of water to smooth things over. "Please don't fight over me. This is all my fault..."

The glass hadn't even touched my fingers when she let go.

It burst on the floor. A shard caught the back of my hand and blood welled up fast.

"Ah!" Sienna cried out, clutching her finger.

Theo charged across the kitchen and shoved me hard. I fell back against the stove and knocked the pot over, and the scalding rim came down on the hand I'd thrown out to catch myself.

For a second, everything went black.

When I looked up, Theo was cradling Sienna's finger and blowing on it gently. Callum was crouched in front of her with the first-aid kit I'd put together myself. He didn't look my way once.

There wasn't so much as a red mark on Sienna's finger.

In the end, the three of them went out to dinner. Just before the door closed, I heard Theo pestering his father. "Dad, if you liked Aunt Sienna for so long, why didn't you marry her?"

Callum was quiet for a moment.

"Back then, Daddy's ears didn't work right. I wasn't good enough for her."

The door shut.

I sat in the broken glass and remembered the day he proposed, down on one knee in the snow in Central Park, telling me I was the only one who'd never looked down on him.

So that whole time, he'd been thinking about someone else.

I called my lawyer. "I need you to draw up divorce papers."

* * *

That night, I built a fire in the backyard.

The first scarf he ever gave me. The family portrait Theo drew for me when he was three. The glass marble he'd brought home from preschool as a present for me. All of it went in.

My phone lit up in the firelight.

Sienna had sent me a selfie of the three of them, fireworks bursting over the Hudson behind them. Callum's collar was crooked, and there was half a lipstick print on the side of his neck.

Too bad you couldn't make it, sis. The fireworks were gorgeous tonight.

She'd posted the same photo on Instagram. The first like came from my mother-in-law, Margaret.

The daughter-in-law I picked out all those years ago, prettier every year. You and Callum look perfect together.

A minute later, someone tagged me in the Ashford family group chat. Nora, when are you and Callum going to have another one? Trust me, honey, the more kids you have, the tighter you hold on to your man.

I typed one line.

Maybe ask Sienna.

Then I left the group.

Less than half an hour later, Callum kicked the bedroom door open.

"What the hell was that in the group chat? Do you know how many relatives are in there? Sienna's been crying ever since she saw it. Her anxiety's flaring up again!"

"Was I wrong?" I tilted my head back to look at him. "What's more disgusting, what I said or what the two of you have been doing?"

His hand came across my face.

My head snapped to the side. Half my face went hot and numb.

Callum froze the moment he'd done it. Something flickered in his eyes. But before he could say a word, a vase came flying through the doorway and hit me in the forehead.

"That's for being mean to Aunt Sienna!" Theo stuck his tongue out at me and ran back to his room.

Warm blood ran down over my brow and into my eye. Everything went red.

"Are you... are you okay?" Callum panicked and went for the gauze.

Six years, and it was the first time I'd seen him look at me like that, scared.

I pushed his hand away. "Don't."

He stood frozen. After a long time, his voice softened.

"Nora, I think... your voice doesn't really bother me so much anymore. Let's just make it work, the three of us. I promise I'll keep my distance from Sienna. Okay?"

Keep his distance.

I thought of Sienna's Instagram, the one only I could see. In those photos, there hadn't been room for air between them.

Even now, he couldn't bring himself to say it: My ears have been fine for years.

I didn't answer. I turned my back to him and lay down.

In the middle of the night, his side of the bed glowed with his phone screen. His thumb must have slipped, because a voice message started playing.

Sienna's laugh rang out in the dark, sweet and soft.

Callum shot up on one elbow and leaned over to see whether I was asleep.

I kept my eyes closed until morning.