The suitcase wouldn’t close. Just like the last time. And the time before that. I yanked the zipper, my hands trembling—not from effort, but from the silence. Three years of loving Oliver like he was oxygen, and all I got was this quiet apartment above the old harbor shop, rain tapping like impatient fingers on the glass. Liam slept fitfully in the next room, clutching the stuffed whale I’d sewn when he was born. Downstairs, the phone rang for the fifth time in an hour. Oliver. Again. I let it ring. I wasn’t going back to play nursemaid to a man who flinched when I touched him, who kept a photo of his first love tucked inside his desk drawer like a sacred relic. Alice was back now—fragile, confused, needing him—and suddenly, I was excess. Unneeded. Invisible. But this time, I wouldn’t beg. This time, I’d vanish clean.

I zipped the bag shut with a tear-streaked breath. My coat hung by the door, still damp from yesterday’s storm. One step, then two. The doorknob was cold. Outside, the ferry whistle blew—a single, mournful cry across the water. We could make it if we ran. Or I could pick up the phone. Let him talk. Maybe lie again about how things would change.

Liam stirred, murmuring, “Mama?”

My heart cracked. Stay and fight for a man who doesn’t see me? Or take my son and sail toward something unknown?