Chapter 14 - Bridget Asked Whether I Ever Loved Her After Hannah
We met in the mansion’s library.
Neutral enough.
Familiar enough.
Sophie was not home.
Bridget sat near the window.
“I need to ask one thing.”
“Okay.”
“Did you ever love me?”
The question surprised me.
“Yes.”
“After Hannah?”
“Yes.”
She looked down.
“I never believed that.”
My first wife had become another quiet presence in the story.
Hannah died young.
Beautiful.
Loved by everyone.
Photographs still existed.
Sophie had her eyes.
Bridget entered a house filled with evidence that another woman had been here first.
I thought I handled that well.
Apparently not.
“You compared yourself to her?”
“Every day.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
I stopped.
She was right.
Not directly.
But she once asked whether I would have married her if Hannah were alive.
I got angry because I thought the question was disrespectful.
Another time, she asked whether she could redecorate the bedroom.
I said Hannah had chosen everything and I wasn’t ready.
Two years later, the room still looked almost exactly the same.
I had asked Bridget to join my life while preserving parts of it like a museum.
That hurt her.
Again:
Explanation.
Not excuse.
She looked at my wheelchair.
“When you got hurt, I thought maybe this was finally something I could do better than Hannah.”
I frowned.
“Take care of me?”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t love. That’s competition.”
“I know.”
She cried.
“I liked being necessary.”
Then my recovery accelerated.
Diane returned.
My company pulled at me.
Bridget felt herself becoming optional again.
Then Mom brought the warehouse crisis.
Suddenly Bridget had a problem only she could solve.
The proxy.
The loans.
My schedule.
My medication.
Everything made her necessary.
“I kept telling myself I was protecting you.”
She looked at me.
“But I think part of me liked that you couldn’t make decisions without me.”
There it was.
The hardest truth.
She had not wanted me dead.
She had not even consciously wanted me permanently disabled.
But my dependence had made her feel secure.
And when independence started returning, she interfered.
I let that sit between us.
Then Bridget asked:
“Is there any chance for us?”
I thought carefully.
“No.”
Her face collapsed.
Not because I hated her.
Not because people cannot change.
Because the marriage we had could not survive what she did, and I did not want to spend the next decade turning every sleepy morning into an investigation.
She nodded.
“Okay.”
Then:
“Can I still care about Sophie?”
“Yes.”
“Can I see her?”
“If and when contact is good for her.”
“That might be never.”
“Yes.”
She cried.
I did not rescue her from that possibility.
Before leaving, she placed the old white bottle on the table.
Empty.
Sealed from evidence return.
“I kept thinking about throwing it away.”
“Why didn’t you?”
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“Because throwing things away doesn’t make them unhappen.”
For once, Bridget had learned the right lesson.
