that I could not love her unless I continued. I wanted her to understand those things, but I was not certain one conversation could carry the weight of seven years. "You made a plan, Erica," I said finally. "The mistake wasn't wanting a different life. The mistake was assuming I would keep paying for the one you chose after you left me."
She wiped at her eyes. "I know," she said, and I believed she meant it in that moment.
Then she added, "I miss the house. I miss walking down here after work. I miss Ray pretending not to like me and Sam reminding everyone when lunch was supposed to arrive." She looked across the water, where a line of small waves broke against the pilings. "I miss the life I spent so much time telling myself was beneath me."
That hurt more than I had expected. I could still remember Erica bringing coffee to the service bay, laughing at Ray, and standing beside me on the dock the evening we learned we had won the Wrightsville Beach contract. Those memories had not been erased by her departure. They existed beside the harder ones, and hearing her miss them reminded me that losing a marriage is rarely the same thing as finding out every good memory was a lie. I swallowed and asked what she hoped I would do with what she had told me.
She hesitated before answering. "Could you help me just a little?" she asked. "A loan. Something temporary, until I get on my feet. I know I've already asked too much, but I don't have anywhere stable right now." She spoke softly, and I could see that the request cost her something.
Once she would have described it as an investment in herself. Now she was asking because she needed help and feared I would say no.
I thought about my mother counting out money into envelopes, about the years Ray and Sam and I had kept Harborline alive with loans and unpaid weekends, and about how long it had taken me to learn that refusing a request did not always mean refusing to care about the person making it. I also thought about the financial agreement Erica and I had negotiated with two attorneys in the room. I had fulfilled those terms. She had the resources and responsibilities we had formally allocated to her, and I could not keep turning our separation into a series of informal rescues whenever another plan collapsed.
"I can't be the person who finances your next beginning," I told her. "Not after what happened between us." She began crying then, quietly, without the anger I remembered from the porch. I asked whether she had spoken to her lawyer or a financial counselor about a realistic budget and stable housing, and she nodded. She said she was trying. I told her I hoped she found a way that belonged to her, but I was not going to lend her money or return to the old arrangements.