Chapter 147: 147. Discussing It Together Just To Hear The Answer That Didn’t Lead To Divorce

The question sat in the air between the three of them. Petricia looked at the street for a long moment before she answered.

’Holy shit... I didn’t know that she would ask a question that was FUCKING straightforward...’ Mike thought. ’Either she’s innocent or clueless... or even worse... an airhead or a dumbass.’

"I think I love who he was," she said. "Or who I thought he was, or who he was when we were still trying to become things."

She pressed her lips together. "I don’t know if love is the right word for what I feel about the person who has been in that office for the last five years, the one who comes home smelling like the casino and says everything is fine."

"What’s the right word?" Mike said.

"Tired," she said simply. "And maybe... responsible."

"Attached in the way you get attached to something that’s been part of your life for a long time, even when it’s stopped being what it was." She looked at him. "Is that terrible?"

"No," Mike said. "It’s honest."

"It feels terrible."

"Most honest things do," Haruka said, and then looked slightly surprised at herself for saying it.

Petricia was quiet for a moment.

Then she said, to no one in particular, "I built that building."

"I mean, yes, Gerald was there; Gerald did the paperwork and the maintenance and all the things that needed two people.,, but I built it."

"The relationship with the tenants, the character of the place, the reason people stay." She looked at her hands on the railing. "I just want to know that the thing I’ve been building matters to someone."

"Not just as a building, but as something I did."

"It does," Mike said.

She glanced at him. "You’ve been here a week."

"That counts as long enough," he said.

She held his look for a moment, and what was in her face was something layered, several things occupying the same space, gratitude and something more complicated and the specific quality of someone who has been seen accurately and isn’t sure whether that’s a comfort or an exposure.

"You’re very strange," she said.

"That’s the second time today someone has told me that," he said.

"Who was the first?" Haruka said and then immediately: "It was me, wasn’t it?"

"This morning," Mike confirmed.

Haruka looked at Petricia. "We’re consistent at least."

Petricia laughed, and it was real, and the quality of the night shifted a notch.

Mike looked at the street and let the laughter do what it does, which is sometimes the most efficient thing a moment can produce.

Then he said, "You don’t have to figure everything out tonight."

"I know," Petricia said.

"I know that." She was quiet for a moment. "I just needed to be somewhere that wasn’t that room."

"Then be here for a bit," Haruka said. "We’re not going anywhere."

Petricia looked at her, and then at Mike, and what was in her expression was the particular warmth of someone who has been reminded, in a moment when they most needed it, that the people around them are actually there.

"Can I say something that might be uncomfortable?" Mike said.

’Here goes... manipulation time.’

Petricia glanced at him. "You’re going to say it regardless."

"Gerald is not a bad person," Mike said. "You know that."

"He is someone who has discovered the only source of happiness he cannot find elsewhere, but that source requires money and takes precedence over more important matters." He kept his voice even. "The problem isn’t that he’s cruel."

"The problem is that he’s absent even when he’s in the room, and you’ve been building something by yourself for years, and every now and then he reaches into it for the part that makes him feel present."

Petricia looked at the street.

"That’s very accurate," she said quietly.

"The question is what you want to do with that," Mike said. "Not tonight. But eventually."

"You can tell me it’s my marriage and my business." 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"It is," Mike said. "And also you’re here at a viewing platform at eleven on a Friday instead of at home."

She smiled, barely, but it was there. "You’re terrible at being diplomatic."

"I don’t believe in it," he said. "It wastes time."

Haruka said from the other side, "He’s right about the absence thing."

"My grandmother used to say that a person who is physically present but emotionally somewhere else is harder to live with than someone who is simply gone, because at least when someone is gone you know where they are."

Both Mike and Petricia looked at her.

Haruka looked slightly surprised at herself, and then she bowed down a bit. "S-Sorry... That came from a specific place."

"Your grandmother sounds smart," Petricia said.

"She was," Haruka said. "She also had an opinion about everything, which was exhausting."

"Mine was the same," Petricia said.

"She used to sit at the kitchen table with her tea and dispense observations about my life like she was reading them off a list." She paused. "She was usually right, and that was the frustrating part."

"Mine wrote things down," Haruka said. "In a notebook. She said—if you write down what you observe, you can’t pretend later that you didn’t see it."

"That’s terrifying," Petricia said.

"I know she gave me the notebook when she died, but I haven’t opened it."

The railing was quiet for a moment between the three of them, and the city below did not stop for it but somehow held a quality that was slightly softer.

Petricia looked at the street and then at her hands.

"He did say sorry," she said. "When I was walking out..."

"He said it through the doorway."

"I know," Mike said. "I heard."

She looked at him with the expression of someone recalibrating. "You were in the hallway."

"Passing through," he said. "Not trying to eavesdrop too."

She maintained eye contact with him for a moment before looking away, and although she had thoughts about the situation, she chose not to express them, which he respected as her right.

"Sorry means different things depending on who says it and when," Haruka said. "My dad used to say it all the time and mean it."

"It just never changed what came after."

"Gerald means it too," Petricia said.

"I know he means it." She exhaled. "I just don’t know anymore what the meaning is worth."

No one provided an answer, as this type of question did not have a clear resolution. It was the kind of thing that lingered in the air, seeking acknowledgment. Sometimes, the best way to acknowledge it is simply to remain present, without moving away.

After another few minutes she straightened up from the railing and turned around, putting her back to the street and looking at the two of them. She looked tired in the specific way of someone who has been carrying a weight for longer than tonight.

"Okay," she said, her voice heavy with weariness. "Okay..."

"Okay means home," Mike asked.

"Correct... okay means home," she said while giggling.

She turned toward the walkway path, and Mike fell into step beside her, and Haruka came up on the other side, and the three of them walked back toward Harwick Lane in the way that people walk when the difficult part is over and the distance left is just distance.

The street was quieter than it had been when they left. A taxi passed at the far end, turned, and disappeared.

Somewhere in the middle distance, a door closed. The city had moved into its later register, not silent but settled, the particular sound of a Friday night that has peaked and is now winding down toward Saturday.

Haruka was walking with both hands around her travel cup even though whatever had been in it was long cold. She had the posture of someone who was processing something at a pace that required physical stillness, all the movement was going inward.

"She’s going to be okay," Haruka said, her voice a blend of reassurance meant for both Mike and herself, though it landed somewhere in between.

"Yes," Mike said.

"I mean, not tonight necessarily. But eventually."

"Yes," Mike said again.

Haruka looked at him sideways. "You don’t feel the need to add anything to that?"

"You said it correctly," Mike said. "What would I add?"

She glanced forward again. "Most people contribute additional thoughts."

"It’s a way to demonstrate they’re engaged, and it helps the conversation feel like it’s progressing somewhere."

"I was paying attention," Mike said. "It already went somewhere."

She was quiet for a moment. Then she asked, "Do you always know when to stop talking?"

"No," he said. "But I usually know when not to start."

Haruka considered this and then said nothing, which was itself an acknowledgment.

They were half a block from Schneider when Petricia stopped walking. She turned to Mike and looked at him with an expression that conveyed multiple emotions at once—gratitude, something deeper, and an unspoken sentiment she wouldn’t articulate.

She had spent years being practical, and expressing certain feelings required a skill she had not practiced.

Then she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him long and meaningfully. It was a kiss that conveyed her sincerity, a moment she embraced fully, knowing that any future explanation would demand more energy than she had to give.

’What the fuck is she doing...?’

’Haruka is still—Ah, fuck it... let her watch.’

Mike did not step back. He let it be what it was.

When she pulled back, she looked at him for a moment with her hands still at his jaw, and then she let go and straightened and turned back toward the building, resuming her pace as though she were reclaiming her own composure with each step.

’What is she going to say next...?’