Ethan reached for the coat on his arm. He offered it to me with the same ordinary consideration he had shown throughout our marriage, the consideration I had once dismissed as unromantic. I took it without putting it on, pressing the wool against my stomach as though it might hold something together.
"Are you coming home?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I'm staying with my brother for a while. The note explains where to reach me about the house, the dogs, and the business. Elise will make sure the records are available to your lawyer."
"Could we just talk? Somewhere without all these people?"
"We will need to talk. But not tonight, and not like this."
I glanced again at the ring on the table. "You're really leaving?"
His expression shifted, not into anger but into an exhaustion I'd never let myself see. "Claire, you didn't just fall in love with somebody else. You wanted me to watch. You wanted strangers to watch. You asked me to come here so you could make sure I understood how little I mattered to you. I don't know what a conversation tonight could repair."
I had no answer. He continued, more quietly, "I loved you through a lot of difficult years. I also know I wasn't there for you as often as I should have been. Both things can be true. But the way you chose to leave this marriage was yours. You can't give that decision to Ryan, and you can't give it to me."
He took a step back. I wanted to reach for his hand, but I finally recognized that wanting comfort did not entitle me to ask it of the person I'd hurt. I let him walk toward the elevators. When he reached the doors, he paused and looked at me once, as though memorizing the woman I had become so he could stop mistaking her for the person he'd married.
Then he was gone. The music grew loud again almost immediately. Somebody laughed near the bar, a new group of tourists arrived, and a couple began dancing where Ryan and I had stood. A man who had paid thirty dollars for a cocktail was already complaining about the bill. The world had not even paused for the destruction I had worked so hard to make spectacular.
I stayed until a server quietly asked whether she could clear the table. My drink had melted into a pool of ice, and Ethan's ring lay where he'd placed it. I picked it up with fingers that would not stop shaking. It was warm from the room and lighter than I expected, as though nine years of marriage could be reduced to a small circle of metal that fit in the palm of one hand.
I gave the server my credit card and paid for a drink I hadn't finished. Then I asked her to call me a car. Outside the Aster House, the air smelled of rain and exhaust, and Broadway was still bright with people who believed the night might become the best story they'd ever tell. I wanted to disappear into the crowd. For once, there was no crowd willing to disappear me.