Of course none of this is your fault. You absolutely couldn’t have done anything differently to stop it. Do you hear me when I say this? Do you really hear me? I made these choices and they were completely separate from you. And that was my biggest problem…not considering you the way I should’ve. It was cruel. I don’t think you’re broken. I didn’t get Odette pregnant on purpose. It was an accident.
You do know me. You may feel like there are parts of me you don’t know, yes, but you do know the heart of me. I separated myself…in order to deceive you. I even thought about those damn horcruxes in Harry Potter. It was like that. I split myself. I should’ve said no to Odette from jump. But I didn’t. I couldn’t believe how hard it was to say no. I’m weak. But you do know me, Tallie. You do. Think about all we’ve been through together. It doesn’t just go away. And even if it did, where would it go? One of us would still keep it.
I think you are an amazing woman who deserves far better than me, but I must admit there was an incredibly selfish part of me always hoping I could somehow remain in your life. And your email really lit up that part of my heart. So thank you. I am trying to fix my mistakes…the mistakes I’ve made in this Universe…I’d like to correct them by doing （at least some things） right.
Talk soon,
Joel
PS: I’m coming back to town for Christmas and of course I fucking miss you, Tallie. Of course I do. You were my wife for a long time. I’ll love you forever.
PPS: I hope you have a good time at Li’s party tomorrow.
*
Emmett drank a glass of water in front of Tallie’s kitchen sink after she disappeared into her bedroom.
（The police officer had celery-brown eyes. A high and tight haircut, clean-shaven. Gun on his right hip. Last name stitched into his uniform in white: Bowman. His front tooth, slightly crooked. The tip of Tallie’s nose gets hot pink when she cries. Her fingernails are short and painted deep orange. She wears earrings, but no rings. A light confetti of orange and black cat hair on her jeans, below her knees. And she sparks electric…like a woman.）
TALLIE
The orange streetlamp drenched Tallie’s large living-room window with rainy, honeyed light. The gloaming spilled over her houseplants and bookshelves, poured across the floor. She loved that window, the holiness. She sat there in it, watching Emmett sleep. He breathed slow and deep with the ball of his foot pressing the armrest, as if he were kicking to a swim and would splosh the couch to water. She’d told him it was good for him to get extra rest. Tallie spoke with her clients often about their sleep schedules and how important they were to both their mental and physical health.
Like a fever dream, Emmett was on her couch with his backpack tucked next to him, and Joel was in Montana with his hair up in a ponytail, holding his new baby girl. She’d blocked Joel’s number from her phone, but it lived on in her mind alongside the other number minutiae she had memorized. Joel wore a thirty-two thirty-two in pants but could wear a thirty-two thirty also, depending. Joel wore a ten and a half in shoes. Joel had thirty thousand seventeen dollars in his savings account when he and Tallie got married. Joel’s parents’ address was seven zero four. Joel’s brother was two years older. Joel’s birthday was nine nine. Tallie and Joel were married on six six. Tallie and Joel suffered through five failed IVF cycles—numberless injections and hours on the phone with the insurance company, innumerable days in bed, crying, wishing, praying—before they fully believed the unexplained infertility diagnosis. Tallie and Joel were married for ten years and five months. Joel had finally admitted to his affair on ten one, but only after Tallie told him she’d suspected it; she’d caught him texting Odette at two in the morning. Tallie and Joel were separated for the Kentucky-required sixty days, plus four more. They went through uncontested divorce proceedings on twelve four.
Tallie and Joel had gotten married in June in the wildflower gardens by the river, promising I’ll love you forever in front of practically everyone they’d ever known. Joel and Odette had gotten married in December, mere weeks after the divorce. Joel had called Tallie, said they’d gone downtown to the courthouse, told her over the phone that Odette was pregnant.
“Tallie, it was an accident,” he’d said, as if he’d done nothing more than knock a glass of red across a white tablecloth.
“The pregnancy or the marriage?”
Joel was quiet on the phone.
“Marriage doesn’t mean anything to you, Joel.”