When I Stopped Waiting for My Husband

Garrett flew all night from Europe for our daughter's sipandsee, and the second he lifted Winnie into his arms, she cried so hard she almost stopped breathing.

I took her back without a word, the way I always do, and had her settled again in under a minute.

My best friend said Garrett had changed planes three or four times to make this party. A storm had shut down half the airport in Europe, and even that hadn't stopped him.

So obviously, she said, the two of us still mattered to him more than anything. I said, "It's been just me and Winnie for a long time now. I'm used to it.

When he took her a minute ago, his hand touched mine, and honestly, it made my skin crawl a little." She jerked her chin toward the door.

Garrett was standing in the doorway, holding the toys he'd bought for his daughter, gone stiff. Chapter 1 I set Winnie down and took the toys from him.

They were European interlocking building sets and logic games, the kind you can't buy here. Not cheap, either.

Apparently, during his layover, Garrett had left his luggage sitting in the airport rather than show up to see his daughter without those toys.

He looked at me, waiting, hopeful, and I couldn't make myself say anything. My friend has never had that problem. "Mr. Langford, your daughter can't even sit up yet.

She won't be able to play with any of this until she's six or seven." Maybe Garrett caught the edge in my eyes, because he went red to the ears. "I'm sorry.

I didn't know toys came with age ranges." She saw where this was heading and started drifting toward the door. "You two haven't seen each other in forever.

I'll get out of your way." Once she left, the room only got more awkward.

Garrett couldn't seem to decide whether to stand or sit. "I'll get Winnie something she can actually use tomorrow." He found a spot close to Winnie and sat down.

I lifted my eyes and kept my voice as pleasant as I could manage. "Um, you're sitting on Winnie's blanket.

I just sanitized it, and you're… kind of dirty." "I don't mean you're dirty. But you've been on planes for hours. You're carrying germs." Garrett got to his feet fast. "Right.

I'll go shower." He hurried over and opened the closet, and found nothing in it but my clothes and Winnie's.

That was when he realized this was the guest room at the end of the hall. We'd been living apart for a year.

He went white and stopped where he stood, then walked out like he was escaping. He was probably thinking about a year ago too. Back then I was still fighting him about it.

Fire Riley, I said. Stop handing Riley projects.

Garrett had looked at me coldly, and the look in his eyes was the look you give a cheap, bitter, nagging wife. "I help Riley because she's on her own and she's had a hard time of it.

Do you have to have such an ugly mind about everything?" "You're still not over her and you know it!" I screamed, stamping my feet. "Samantha, all this nickelanddiming just shows how small you are." "If you put half this energy into your work, you wouldn't come in dead last on your review every single year." I still can't forget the contempt in his eyes.

That same night, he moved me out of the master bedroom. Later, when my manager at work started harassing me, I knocked on Garrett's door in the middle of the night.

I begged him to help me.

He answered through the door, cold. "Samantha, you think you're the most beautiful woman on earth, is that it?" "Every man alive is supposed to revolve around you?" "Your numbers are bad.

You need to look a little harder at your own reasons for that." Chapter 2 "Making accusations you can't back up only makes me think less of you." "Why can't you be more like Riley?" That was the moment my heart died.

In that moment Garrett stopped being the dream I'd carried since I was a girl. He stopped being the husband I leaned on with everything I had.

He became a thick, cold door, and I was never going to get it open. So I took the hint and backed away. I was in my third trimester.

He still insisted on going to Europe with Riley to open the market there, and I felt nothing at all.

His father slapped him across the face and told him he'd forgotten whose side he was supposed to be on.

Garrett wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. "I owe Riley." "Let me pay her back this one time." "Once it's paid, I'll come home and make a real life with Samantha." What he didn't know was that from that day forward, I had already stopped waiting for him to come home.

Later, the doctor found signs of preterm labor and put me on bed rest. Riley's project had reached its critical final stretch. Garrett couldn't come back.

I fell, and the baby came early. When I hemorrhaged afterward and they wheeled me into surgery, Riley's project had reached its critical final stretch. Garrett couldn't come back.

The day Winnie turned a month old she spiked a fever out of nowhere and nearly stopped breathing.

While I was alone at the hospital crying until I passed out, Riley's project finally cleared its first big milestone. Garrett couldn't come back. So now Riley's project is on track.

Garrett has come home. And I don't need him anymore. That night, Garrett pushed the door open.

I assumed he wanted to look at the baby, so I stayed where I was and said quietly, "I just got her down. Go get some sleep." Garrett didn't move.

Then I heard the soft sound of clothes shifting, and he lay down behind me.

His arms went around my waist like a reflex, and his chin settled into the curve of my neck. "Sam, I'm not leaving again." "Riley's paid back.

That's finished." "From now on I'm here, with you and Winnie." I shifted, uncomfortable, and he only locked his arms tighter, tight enough that I could hardly breathe.

Afraid of waking Winnie, I clenched my teeth and let it happen. Garrett took a box out of his pocket. "Sam, I brought you something too.

The Cartier necklace you always loved." "Can I put it on you?" That was when I finally couldn't take any more. I sat straight up and switched on the nightlight.

Garrett was holding a silver diamond necklace. A year ago, if he had given me a gift, I would have cried from happiness.

But a year ago, when I told him I loved Cartier's designs, he only said, mocking me, "Samantha, you are so vain." "Riley would never be like you.

She doesn't own a single piece of jewelry worth more than thirty dollars." "One necklace of yours is a year of her income." The sparkle hurt my eyes and reopened an old wound at the same time.

I blinked the wetness away. "No thank you, Garrett Langford." "I don't like that brand anymore." "Their pieces have sharp edges.

They'd scratch Winnie." "Give it to somebody else." Garrett's hand stopped in midair. His face stayed in the shadow. His mouth was a flat, hard line.

I had no interest in guessing what he was feeling.

I retied the belt of my robe and started for the door. "You keep an eye on Winnie tonight." Maybe it was because I spent my whole pregnancy afraid.

Chapter 3 Winnie was born without much sense of safety in her. She wakes four or five times a night.

In the morning Garrett had shadows under his eyes and looked wrung out. "I had no idea a baby was this hard." The livein nanny kept bouncing Winnie while she answered him. "Mr.

Langford, after Mrs. Langford hemorrhaged she had about one breath left in her, and she still had to nurse Winnie. Now that was hard." "When Winnie ran that fever, she clung to Mrs.

Langford all night while the fever refused to break, and Mrs. Langford got so frantic her whole mouth broke out in sores.

That was hard." "A threemonthold is easy." Garrett snuck a look at me.

His voice came out so low I almost missed it. "Sam, I… I'm sorry." I'm under no obligation to forgive him, so I acted like I hadn't heard.

I was still on parental leave, so I didn't have to go in. But somehow Garrett wasn't going to the office either.

He spent whole days at home circling me and Winnie, and it left me completely on edge. "Um, I've got her.

Go do whatever you need to do." Garrett had already learned to hold her, burp her, get her down for a nap.

He took Winnie from me like he'd been doing it for months. "I put in for leave. Go rest if you're tired.

I've got this." I said, testing him, "So I could go out to the mall?" Garrett smiled at me, indulgent, and handed me a credit card on his account. "Go.

Buy anything you like." I took it, changed into something nice, and left. Honestly, I hadn't set foot in a mall since my third trimester.

My best friend and I worked our way through the whole place, then went and got our nails done. A text came in and the smile dropped off my face.

She snatched my phone away. "Let's see what just ruined your day." She scrolled to the newest message. It was from Garrett. [When are you coming home? I made dinner.

I'm waiting.] She made a jealous little noise. "Look at you, Sam. Out shopping like a free woman while your husband stays home with the baby and cooks.

Somebody's moved up in the world." I sighed. "I don't even know what's wrong with me." "There was a time I'd spin out if I went a day without seeing him." "If I saw him standing too close to Riley, I'd go insane with it." "And now, just knowing he's in the house makes me not want to go home." "He was fine where he was.

What did he come back for?" "He's exhausting." "Actually, can I stay at your place tonight?" She jabbed me with her elbow. I looked up. Garrett was standing beside the car.

He must have heard all of it. His lips were pressed thin, and his eyes were dark as he looked at me. In the car, I expected him to demand an explanation.

He was a proud man, after all. On the subject of him and Riley, he had never once let me finish a sentence. They'd been together briefly in college.

The Langfords were strict with their kids, so back then Garrett kept quiet about the family money. Some rich family's son threw money at Riley.

Riley ended up pregnant by him, had an abortion, and can never have children now.

She cried and said she'd only let him force her into bed because she was short three thousand dollars for tuition. She had never meant to betray Garrett.

Garrett took the whole thing onto himself. If he hadn't been playing poor, Riley would never have had to go through any of it.

Afterward his father shipped him off to Europe, and Europe is where he and I met. I threw myself at him for three years and he never said yes.

Then news reached us over there that Riley had gotten married. That was when he agreed to be with me.

Chapter 4 But Riley wasn't happy in her marriage, and in the second year of ours, she divorced. Then she came to work at Garrett's company.

Garrett was full of regret and blamed himself. Drunk one night, he told a friend that if he hadn't gotten married, he could have waited for Riley.

The friend asked whether he'd ever cheat for her. He shook his head, hard. "I'm a married man.

I have to carry a husband's responsibilities." "Riley can be as wonderful as she likes.

She's the past." "All I'll ever do is give her a hand at work." So he gave her a hand, and another, and another. He never once gave me one.

When it was clear Garrett wasn't going to demand anything, I just pretended to sleep.

Then he started making conversation out of nothing, his tone light and awkward at the same time. "Did you have a good time today?" "It was fine." "From now on, I'm home.

You can go out with your girlfriends whenever you want." "Mm." "I noticed…" He glanced at me, hesitating. "You didn't use the card I gave you." I shifted into a more comfortable position. "I can afford my own shopping.

I'll think of that card as something I'm holding for Winnie." "Sam, we're married. My money is supposed to be spent on the two of you.

There's no need to keep such careful accounts between us." I opened my mouth, then said, "No, careful accounts are better." Careful accounts make it easier to settle up later.

As the end of my leave came closer, I got anxious. I couldn't fall asleep at night, and when I did, I kept jerking awake.

Garrett said, kindly, "You don't have to go back if you don't want to.

I can arrange an extended leave for you." "I can support both of you." I looked up at him. "Garrett Langford, is it that in your eyes I'm some hopeless mess nobody can prop up?

Dead last on my reviews every year, barely making any money, so whether I work at all doesn't matter?" "And your Riley can carry that whole European operation, so she's worth developing and supporting in person?" "Sam, that's not what I meant.

I just… I didn't want it to be too hard on you." "Garrett Langford, maybe Riley is very good at her job.

But even the smallest person in the room is allowed to want something for herself.

I'm not giving up on what I'm after just because my manager scored me at the bottom." I swallowed two melatonin and made myself sleep. Garrett is allowed to look down on me.

I'm not. On my first day back, I pulled my Honda Civic out of the garage. I've had that car for years.

Garrett opened the door of his Maybach. "Let me drive you." I turned and looked at him, not following. "Why?" It isn't as though I can't drive. "Sam, we're married.

Going in to work together is the most natural thing in the world." I laughed. "Must be nice, being important enough to forget things.

You're the one who said we don't make the marriage public." "I've used my own last name since the day I was hired.

Outside of the head of HR, nobody in that building knows we're married." Which is why, when a young intern confessed he had feelings for me and Garrett happened to walk past, Garrett only frowned slightly and kept walking, not a flicker on his face. "Sam, we have Winnie now.

I want us to be a normal married couple." I laughed again. "So you do know. That whatever we've been, it isn't normal." Then I hit the gas and left.

At lunch, my manager, Kenneth, slid in across from me. His eyes crawled over my face, then went down my whole body like a scanner. Everything in me went cold.

Then he said it, in the kind of voice that doesn't belong in daylight.

Chapter 5 "Sammy, is it me, or did having a baby make you more of a woman?" "Waist where a waist should be, chest where a chest should be.

Good enough to eat." He's the only person in that whole company who calls me that. I picked up my tray to leave and he clamped a hand down on my arm.

The commotion was enough that coworkers at the next table kept glancing over. I sat back down, humiliated.

Because the image Kenneth has spent years building is the model husband, the devoted family man.

And I'm a single mother whose child has no known father — and the problem employee whose numbers come in last, year after year. Nobody would believe he was going after me.

They'd only decide the problem was me.

Kenneth looked even more pleased with himself. "Sammy, raising a kid on your own has to be exhausting." "And if your numbers come in at the bottom again this year, well, I'd worry about you covering the bills." He leaned in a little and let his voice fill in the rest. "Sammy, if anything's ever hard, you come tell Ken about it.

Don't tough it out alone. A woman's supposed to be taken care of by a man." My teeth were locked together. I was about to bring the tray down on that greasy man's head.

Garrett sat down across from us. "You don't mind?" Kenneth