“I’m really sorry. Of course I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. I did message you. But you’ve been out most of the day and I had to take this flight tonight.”

“What about Phoebe? You can’t leave without saying goodbye to her.”

“I already have. She’s in her room. She’s fine, Lil, honestly.”

Lily blanched at the thought of Phoebe upstairs having already said her goodbyes. “I’m worried about her, Daniel, you know I am. She’s become so . . . secretive lately. I worry about the impact you being away will have on her.”

Daniel sighed. “Please, Lil, let’s not do this again. We’ve been through it a hundred times. I’d be mad to turn this opportunity down. It’s only six months working out of the New York office and then I stand a really good chance of being made a managing partner. I thought that’s what you wanted—what we both wanted.”

Lily recalled all their conversations over the years about the milestones they planned to reach in their careers. She’d always supported Daniel’s ambitions, just as he had hers. She’d just never envisaged that they would have to live on separate continents to achieve them. “It was. It is. It’s just . . . A six-month assignment isn’t insignificant. You’re dismantling our lives and I’m allowed to feel ambivalent about that.”

Lily folded her arms across her chest so that Daniel couldn’t see how much her hands were shaking. In the tension between them she imagined him stepping forward, wrapping his arms around her, leaning his head against hers—his breath hot on her neck—and whispering into her ear that he didn’t have to go.

“I’m not dismantling our lives. Let’s be honest, we barely see each other during the week as it is because one of us is always working, so me moving abroad for a few months is hardly going to be a radical change. Don’t look at me like that—you know it’s true.”

Lily glanced past Daniel, down the hallway, toward the new kitchen they’d finished installing only three months before. “I know we work hard and I know this is a great opportunity for you. I suppose . . . I just wish you found it a bit harder to leave all this—to leave us—behind.”

Daniel took a step toward her, placed his hands gently on her shoulders. “Of course it’s difficult to leave. But it’s not forever. And I know our life is great in lots of ways, but that doesn’t mean . . .” His voice was low and quiet before it trailed off altogether.

“Doesn’t mean what?”

“I just think some space might do us good.”

“In what way?”

There was a momentary pause during which it was almost possible to hear the scales balancing in Daniel’s head, weighing up the pros and cons of saying what was on his mind. “You know what I’m talking about. You’ve never been able to let go of the past. I honestly don’t know whether it’s because you don’t want to or that you can’t, but it’s always there between us. It’s been like that for years. And I’m sorry, you know I am, but you’re not the only one who’s affected by it. It has an impact on all of us.” He looked away, twisting the platinum band on his ring finger that Lily had placed there almost eighteen years before.